CGA Women SriLanka

Country Gender Assessment
Sri Lanka
ASIAN DEVELOPMENT BANK

South Asia Regional Department
and Regional and Sustainable Development Department
Country Gender Assessment
SRI LANKA
South Asia Regional Department and

Regional and Sustainable Development Department
Asian Development Bank
Manila, Philippines
2004
© Asian Development Bank 2004
All rights reserved
Published March 2004
The views and interpretations in this report are those of the author and not necessarily
those of the Asian Development Bank
ISBN 971-561-539-2
Publication Stock No. 040704
Published by the Asian Development Bank

P.O. Box 789, 0980 Manila, Philippines
This report is one of a series of country gender assessments (CGAs) undertaken by ADB
to provide background information and analysis on gender and development issues in ADB’s
developing member countries. The primary purpose of the series is to provide input to the
formulation of country strategies and programs, and in project design and implementation.
The Sri Lanka CGA updates information contained in an earlier publication – Country
Briefing Paper on Women in Sri Lanka, published by ADB in 1999.
The Sri Lanka CGA was prepared by a consultant, Dr. Swarna Jayaweera, with assistance
from Professor Savitri Goonesekere for the subsection on Women’s Rights and Kamini Vitarana
for the assessment of the four ADB environment related projects. The publication was prepared in
close collaboration with Sophia Ho, Senior Country Programs Specialist, South Asia Operations
Cooperation Division and Shireen Lateef, Principal Social Development Specialist, Poverty
Reduction and Social Development Division.
Rupa Simithriarachchy and Sugandhika Nawana provided secretarial services. Bong

Reclamado provided production assistance.
It is hoped the publication will also be useful to government, nongovernment

organizations, and individuals working in the field of gender and development.
ABBREVIATIONS
ADB – Asian Development Bank

CEDAW – Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination Against Women
CIDA – Canadian International Development Agency
GAD – gender and development
ILO – International Labour Organisation
IMR – infant mortality rate
IT – information technology
LTTE – Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
MDG – Millenium Development Goals
MMR – maternal mortality rate
NORAD – Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation
RRR – Relief, Rehabilitation and Reconciliation
UN – United Nations
UNDP – United Nations Development Programme
WFP – World Food Programme
WID – women in development
NOTE
In this report, “$” refers to US dollars.

Contents
ABBREVIATIONS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Chapter 1 WOMEN IN SRI LANKA 1

Development Context 1
Demographic Background 1
Women’s Rights in Sri Lanka 2
Criminal Law 2
Family Law 3
Land Rights 3
Social Security 4
Labor Legislation 4
Migrant Workers 4
Political Participation 5
Health and Nutritional Status 5
Education and Training 7
Provision of General Education 8
Participation, Retention and Performance in Education 9
Tertiary Education 11
Technical and Vocational Education 13
Literacy 13
Education and Socialization 14
Information and Communications Technology 15
Economic Activities 16
Poverty 23
Environment 25
Gender-Based Violence 26
Sociocultural Constraints 27
Armed Conflict, Peace, and Reconciliation 29
Chapter 2 POLICIES AND PROGRAMS 31

National Policies and Programs 31
National Education Policy 31
Poverty Reduction Strategy 31
Regaining Sri Lanka Policy 32
Action Plan 32
Gender Equity Committee 33
Millenium Development Goals 34
Gender Peace Committees 34
National Employment Policy 35
National Machinery for Women’s Affairs 35
CEDAW 36
Nongovernment Organizations 37
Donor Agencies 38
Chapter 3 CRITICAL GENDER ISSUES 41

Gender and Poverty 41
Women in Peace and Reconstruction 43
Chapter 4 GENDER ISSUES RELEVANT TO ADB OPERATIONS 47

Gender Issues in Sri Lanka’s Development Context 47
ADBs Country Strategy and Program 48
Gender Issues in ADBs Programs 49
Agriculture and Rural Development 49
Industry and Finance 50
Education and Training 51
Infrastructure Development 52
Natural Resources 52
Conflict-Affected Areas 53
Gender Mainstreaming 53
Chapter 5 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ADB OPERATIONS 55

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Sri Lankan women have a relatively better status than women in many other developing
countries but have yet to achieve gender equality or empowerment in consonance with
international norms. The confluence of positive social policies, slow economic growth and
consequent persistent poverty among segments of the population, armed conflict, and gendered
social norms have contributed to uneven development that impinges on the quality of life of
women.
The Constitutional provision (1978) of equal rights without discrimination on the grounds
of sex, and the ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
Against Women (CEDAW) in 1981, universal franchise and equal rights to contest elections in
1931, and equal access to free education and health services in the 1940s have all contributed to
promoting gender equality. Women have equal rights in the General law but discriminatory
provisions exist in varying degrees in the family law of each community pertaining to areas such
as marriage, divorce, property, and financial transactions. Women are denied equal rights to land
in State-assisted settlements. Labor legislation conforms to international practice but enforcement
is relatively weak, and workers in the informal sector, a substantial proportion of whom are
women, are outside the ambit of labor laws. The amendments to the Penal Code in 1995
expanded the scope of legislation to counter gender-based violence but gaps exist due to the
absence of domestic violence legislation.
Despite 7 decades of universal franchise and elected women leaders in the highest seats
of political power since 1960, the percentage of women in Parliament is around 4% and even less
in local assemblies. Cabinets have usually had one woman Minister. The multiple roles of women
and the prevailing climate of political violence are constraining factors to women’s participation
while political parties and extra legal political movements appear reluctant to groom women for
leadership roles. The proposed Women’s Act provides for a 25% quota for women but it is
uncertain whether this target can be reached.
Equal access to health services has contributed to relatively high health indicators and to
lower rates of female mortality and infant mortality rates, higher female life expectancy of 74
years as compared with 72 years for men, and low fertility. Nevertheless, persistent problems are
reflected in the slow decline in morbidity and relatively high levels of undernutrition among
women and children. Women’s reproductive rights are not ensured, and the mother and child
syndrome in health programs has resulted in low priority for adolescent health, occupational
health, geriatric care for the increasing aging population, and the health consequences of domestic
violence and other forms of gender-based violence.
Education has been a basic right for over 6 decades, and the demand for education as an
agent of upward social mobility has resulted in relatively high education participation rates in
primary and secondary education long before formal compulsory education regulations were
introduced in 1998. Free primary, secondary, and tertiary education since 1945 has been a major
factor that contributed to the achievement of gender equality in access to education and relatively
viii Country Gender Assessment—Women in Sri Lanka
high literary rates. Poverty constraints, the inequitable distribution of senior secondary education
facilities, and limited opportunities for higher education are continuing barriers to educational
opportunity. The quality of education too, has declined over the years as a consequence of
resource constraints, despite curricular reforms. Women are particularly disadvantaged in the
context of gender imbalances in enrollment in courses in vocational-technical institutions and the
underrepresentation of women in technical related courses and in information technology skills
(other than word processing), thereby reinforcing the gender division in the labor market. While
education opportunities have expanded, the content of education has tended to reinforce gender
role stereotypes and has failed to promote gender equality in the macro environment or to
empower girls and women to challenge obscurantist, gendered social practices.
A major area of inequality, disadvantage, and gender discrimination is employment. The

unemployment rate of women has been double that of men for more than 3 decades, and the
quality of employment available to women has been deteriorating as the demand for female labor
is mainly for casual and low paid, low skill jobs in the formal and informal sectors.
Women are concentrated in unpaid family labor in the agriculture sector, as plantation
labor, in factory work in labor-intensive industries within and outside export processing zones,
home-based economic activities in the peripheral market as subcontracted workers, in small-scale
and often unviable self-employment in the informal sector and in overseas domestic service
vulnerable to economic exploitation and sexual abuse. Hence, the majority of women have
limited incomes and lack opportunities for upward occupational mobility, while the minority of
women in professional employment or in administrative jobs continue to be confronted by a
“glass ceiling” that impedes access to high level decision-making positions.
While gender segregation data are inadequate to support the thesis of feminization of
poverty, there is no doubt that low-income women’s position in the labor market reinforces their
poverty. The development of their capabilities through equal access to education and health
services has helped to reduce poverty among many families but lack of transport and access to
basic infrastructure has reinforced the social exclusion of remote communities. New poverty
groups have emerged such as the aging, retrenched workers, retired workers, the increasing
number of female-headed households in low-income families and conflict-related poverty which
encompasses loss of assets, livelihoods, and access to basic services. Programs to meet the needs
of families in areas affected by armed conflict have yet to be implemented on a wide scale.
While women have been involved in implementing environment-related projects, the

National Environmental Plan 1998–2001 has not conceptualized a role for women and gender has
been virtually a nonissue in environment impact assessments.
The amendments to the Penal Code in 1995 and 1998 were expected to reduce the
incidence of gender-based violence but cases of rape and child abuse reported in the press appear
to be the tip of the iceberg although comprehensive data are not available. Sexual harassment is
apt to be trivialized and domestic violence and incest are often accepted within the privacy of the
Executive Summary ix
family. Services to assist victims of violence such as crisis centers, legal aid, and counseling are
still very limited. Militarization has also increased opportunities for sexual violence.
Gender roles are not static and gender relations have tended to improve as women engage
in economic activities that bring independent cash incomes. Yet patriarchal values and gendered
norms continue to underpin many policies and programs, and gender role stereotypes imbedded in
the perceptions of decision makers internalized by women reinforce inequalities.
Sri Lanka is presently at a stage when new national policies are being introduced to
stimulate productivity and economic growth and a complementary strategy has been formulated
to reduce poverty. Gender issues are not strongly articulated but they are intended to be addressed
by one of the 12 Steering Committees that have been appointed to take forward the proposed
policies. A Gender Peace Committee has been engaged in developing programs but its activities
are dependent on the progress of the peace process. A new development at national level has been
the formulation of a Women’s Act, which has yet to be published and discussed. Sri Lanka has
reported at intervals to the United Nations Committee that monitors the implementation of
CEDAW provisions, and it is clear that while progress has been made, much remains to be done.
Women’s organizations have been active in lobbying on several issues although overt activism
has been limited or disjointed. Donors have supported both the state and these organizations but
have shifting priorities that create gaps in assistance.
The Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) approach in recent years has supported policy
reform, human resource development and employment promotion, natural resource management,
and infrastructure development. Gender has been considered a crosscutting issue and has been
incorporated in many projects. Ongoing projects and those in the pipeline are perceived to be in
consonance with national policies pertaining to providing economic growth, reducing poverty,
and assisting in relief and reconstruction in conflict-affected areas.
The ADB’s gender strategy has to support state and nonstate institutions and agencies to
meet the needs identified in these policies as well as those that have surfaced from gender studies
and to strengthen earlier initiatives. Some areas of intervention can be identified as follows:
(i) Expanding remunerative employment opportunities for women in the formal and
informal sectors, and equipping women with skills to utilize opportunities through
support for senior science and tertiary education, “nontraditional” technical and
vocational education and the burgeoning area of information and communication
technology, in order to reduce gender disparities in access to assets, resources, and
opportunities. It would be desirable in this context to promote also the elimination of
gender role stereotypes in curriculum materials in education and training institutions in
order to achieve the goals of gender equality and the empowerment of women.
(ii) Ensuring support for the equal participation of women in planning, implementation, and
monitoring infrastructure development programs that facilitate their access to services,
and as actors in community-based programs in natural resource management.
x Country Gender Assessment—Women in Sri Lanka
(iii) Assisting in particular vulnerable groups of women such as elderly women without
resources, female heads of households and retrenched workers in low-income families,
and victims of gender-based violence.
(iv) Supporting programs for women affected by armed conflict including war widows and
other female heads of households in the North and East and in the Puttalam,
Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa and Moneragala districts. Such programs would include
assisting women particularly those in displaced families to gain access to land, credit,
skills training, technology, and markets through self-employment initiatives and relevant
training programs and the promotion of reconciliation and national harmony.
(v) Assisting the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and relevant line ministries at central and
provincial levels and nongovernmental institutions and organizations to
(a) develop skills in gender analysis, development of gender sensitive indicators and
gender audits to facilitate mainstreaming gender in all policies, plans, and
programs;
(b) enhance the capacity of women candidates and women elected under the
provision of a 25% quota for elections to participate effectively in politics; and
(c) advocate law reform and enforcement of existing laws to ensure women’s rights.
Chapter 1 WOMEN IN SRI LANKA
Development Context
Sri Lankan women have a relatively better “status”

than women in many other developing countries but have Millennium Development Goal
yet to achieve gender equality or empowerment in the
context of all the provisions of the United Nations Goal 1 Eradicate extreme
poverty and hunger
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and some of Goal 2 Achieve universal
the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). According primary education
to the Human Development Report (UNDP 2002) Sri
Lanka’s Gender Development Index (GDI) in 2000 was Goal 3 Promote gender equality
0.737 as compared with the Human Development Index and empower women
(HDI) of 0.741 but the Gender Empowerment Measure
(GEM) was only 0.274.1 Goal 4 Reduce child mortality
A complex amalgam of factors has contributed to Goal 5 Improve maternal health

the present situation of women—a forward–looking social
Goal 6 Combat HIV/AIDS,
policy package of free education and health services and malaria, and other
subsidized food introduced 6 decades ago, relatively slow diseases
economic growth, a substantial incidence of poverty, and
unevenly developed infrastructure. Supervening these Goal 7 Ensure environmental
factors have been the contradictions between liberal sustainability
traditional laws, and inequalities reflected in the current
legal system and in traditional and contemporary Goal 8 Develop a global
patriarchal values. The armed conflict that engulfed the partnership for
country during the last 2 decades and inappropriate macro development
economic policies have exacerbated constraints and
resulted in deterioration in the quality of life of women.
Demographic Background
The estimated population for 2001 is 18.7 million and the 2001 Census of Population
Housing, which covered only limited areas in the Northern and Eastern provinces, had a count of
1
The HDI is a summary measure of basic dimensions of human development: life expectancy at birth;
adult literacy rate; combined primary, secondary, and tertiary gross enrollment ratio; and gross
domestic product per capita. While HDI measures the average achievement, the GDI adjusts average
achievement to reflect inequalities between men and women in the same dimensions under HDI. The
GEM measures the extent of women’s achievements in reaching higher levels of economic and
political decision-making power relative to men.
2 Country Gender Assessments —Women in Sri Lanka
17.6 million. The sex ratio has changed in the 1990s in favor of women and was 97.9 in 2001.
Only 6 of the 18 districts covered by the Census had more men than women. The age
compositions of the population too has changed over the years with the population under 18 years
progressively declining to 32.9% and the age group over 60 years recording increases ranging
from 6% to 13% in different districts. As a consequence of the rising educational levels of women
and the increasing use of family planning methods, the annual growth rate of the population
declined over 3 decades and was 1.1% since 1990. While the minimum age of marriage of
women is 18 years, (except in the Muslim community) the de facto average age of marriage for
women is 25 years.
Women’s Rights in Sri Lanka
The Sri Lankan State’s commitments on gender equality were undertaken many decades
before it became a States Party to the CEDAW, the international treaty that now sets the norms on
women’s human rights and their core right to equal treatment. Women received the right of
franchise together with men in 1931, and the right to represent their fellow citizens in the
supreme legislative body, an elected parliament. The social policies on health and education that
were put in place in the 1940s and 1950s guaranteed equal access to women and girls. The
Constitution of 1978 guaranteed equal rights without discrimination on the ground of sex. This
Constitution also provided for policies of affirmative action to remove sex discrimination, thus
recognizing the need to move beyond formal equality and achieve substantive gender equality in
the community at all levels. The ratification of the CEDAW resulted in the Sri Lankan State
undertaking to realize its Constitutional norm of equality in harmony with international standards
set by this treaty.
Reports submitted to the CEDAW treaty body or Committee of Experts that monitors
country performance on gender equality, clarify that Sri Lanka has achieved some progress, but
much remains to be done. The Sri Lankan Government, in response to the CEDAW Committee’s
Concluding Comments, amended the Citizenship Act of 1948 in 2003 to eliminate the gender
discriminatory provisions of that law. Up to date, and despite Constitutional guarantees, only very
few laws have been amended so as to remove gender discrimination and work toward equality
between men and women.
Criminal Law
Gender discriminatory provisions relevant to all women can be found in criminal law and
family law. Some of the more obvious gender discriminatory dimensions of the Criminal law
were removed by far-reaching amendments to the Penal Code enacted in 1995 and 1998. The law
on custodial violence in particular was strengthened in 1998 to create an offence of statutory
custodial rape when a man has sexual intercourse with a woman held in lawful detention. Recent
cases in the Supreme Court have also recognized that rape and sexual molestation by law
enforcement officers amounts to State torture and a violation of fundamental rights under the
Constitution. Domestic violence legislation, which addresses the interface between criminal law
and family law, has yet to be introduced. In particular, the gender discriminatory aspects of laws
Women in Sri Lanka 3
on evidence and procedure in criminal cases, which operate as constraints to fair and effective
administration of criminal justice, have not been removed from the legal system.
Family Law
The General law on family relations gives men and women equal rights in regard to their
property, commercial and financial transactions, and family support responsibilities. Family
maintenance laws were amended in 1999 to remove earlier discriminatory provisions. However,
the law on divorce may result in a woman not receiving adequate financial or property
settlements. The General law also does not confer equal parental rights, a gender discriminatory
dimension that can impact negatively on a married woman’s situation particularly in the event of
a breakdown in the marital relationship. Discrimination in family law is entrenched more deeply
in the case of the personal laws of communities, which are based on ethnicity, locality, or
religion. Thus Kandyan Sinhala law applicable in the Central Provinces, Tamil Thesavalamai
law applicable to those with a permanent residency link to the Northern province, and Muslim
law contain provisions in family law that discriminate against women.
Discriminatory provisions in laws on the age of marriage were removed in 1995 when a
common age of marriage (18 years) and a common age of statutory rape (16 years) were
introduced for all Sri Lankans except Muslims. However, recently, an argument of cultural
relativism has surfaced in the case of children of an indigenous people (the Veddhas). The
Attorney General has given a ruling in a pending case that these people should be able to abide by
their indigenous norms, which recognize child marriage. This opinion suggests that this
community will be exempt from the laws on child marriage and statutory rape. The undermining
of the General law on marriage, and the criminal law, in this way, can have serious consequences
for the health and education of girls. One of the current challenges is to ensure that cultural
relativism is not used to undermine General law norms that harmonize with the values on
women’s human right to equality and equal life opportunities in the community.
Land Rights
Land reform laws introduced in 1972, which provide for a pooling of the immovable
property of husband and wife, operate to the disadvantage of women who own property, since
they can lose their private lands in excess of the ceiling. Low-income women are discriminated in
the allocation of State lands, since the statutory law does not entrench the rights of female heirs,
including the female spouse, and reflects a preference for males. Women's groups have criticized
this particular law, but promised reforms have been continuously postponed. Housing and
matrimonial laws also do not entrench women’s rights or ensure that women have rights of
ownership in the matrimonial home, though court decisions recognize the right of a deserted wife
to live in the matrimonial home as a dimension of the right of support.
Social Security
State laws and administrative policies on social security such as pensions have been
modified over the years to give widows equal rights as widowers. However, administrative
policies on State grants to war widows and women who have lost a spouse in armed conflict
situations are known to expose women to violence in the family. Women are required to stay
single in order to qualify for and retain these payments. The public administration regulations and
practice on the legal status of the male head of household must be reformed to harmonize with the
egalitarian values of the General law on family maintenance and property and contract rights,
which recognize men and women as equal partners. Besides, Sri Lanka family law does not
prohibit widow remarriage. Administrative policies on widowhood and personal laws on
inheritance must therefore be reviewed so as to recognize women’s equal status as members of
the family. When some laws are egalitarian and others are discriminatory, negative social
practices and attitudes to women in the family are reinforced.
Labor Legislation
Employment laws in Sri Lanka go back several decades. Some of these laws, such as
Factories, Workmen’s Compensation and Maternity Leave legislation were based on colonial
statutes that reflected 19th century values of English law. These laws have been extensively
revised in the last 2 decades in response to criticism by women’s groups, seeking to highlight
exploitative management practices in employment, and occupational health hazards faced by
women working in the formal sector. Reforms to maternity leave legislation in particular provide
for 3 months paid maternity leave. Women can also work at night, and employers are required to
provide welfare facilities. The law is in place in most of the public sector institutions, and labor
law monitoring has also been strengthened. However, enforcement can be further improved so as
to provide blue-collar workers in particular better facilities. Regulating the informal sector is a
matter of some controversy, but women’s groups have used research to support the argument for
regulating some key sectors of production, which are not covered by labor laws.
Migrant Workers
Migrant work has become a family survival strategy for Sri Lankan women. The
Government has an open and unregulated policy in this regard. Women constitute a significant
proportion of Sri Lanka’s migrant workers. Since the 1980s Sri Lanka has introduced legal
reforms and administrative policies to provide support for migrant workers and prevent
exploitation by employment agencies. Local domestic service also remains largely unregulated.
The Ministry of Labour has current proposals to regulate the area of domestic work through laws
on social security.
Political Participation
Despite the experience of 7 decades of a democratic system of governance, universal

franchise, equal participation of women in voting at elections, and elected women leaders in the
highest seats of political power (President or Prime Minister), the percentage of women in
Parliament and in local assemblies has been abysmally low. In the national legislation, there have
never been more than 5% of women, and this low percentage even declined to around 4% at the
last General Election in 2001. Cabinets have usually one woman Minister with a few other
women Ministers in lesser positions. Representation in provincial and local assemblies has been
unacceptably low. Provincial councils have around 2% women members and one Minister.
Municipal councils and pradeshiya (divisional) councils have around the same proportion of
women.
This deplorable situation has continued unchanged over the years despite increasing
agitation by women’s organizations. Studies indicate that four major factors behind the low
participation of women and the reluctance of women to enter politics—the gendered norm of
male leadership; time constraints as women already combine employment, domestic tasks, and
child care; lack of adequate financial resources; and the prevailing climate of political violence.
Political parties have made little effort to groom women members for election to assemblies.
Trade union leadership is male dominated. Women in extra-legal political movements are more
committed to active involvement to the extent even of sacrificing their lives as suicide bombers,
but they too are far from the centers of power in their organizations.
Constant lobbying by women’s organizations and the demand for a 25–30% quota at
elections to ensure adequate participation, based on the Indian model of one-third compulsory
female representation in local assemblies (panchayats) had some response. On principle,
policymakers agreed to a 25% quota of nominations for women. The Women’s Act that is being
formulated provides for this quota. Nevertheless political parties have yet to be activated to reach
this target, and only future elections will indicate whether affirmative action will ensure adequate
representation at least at local government (pradeshiya sabha) level. Sri Lanka’s low ranking on
the GEM is largely due to the low representation of women in political institutions and decision-
making positions in the public and private sectors.
Health and Nutritional Status
Women have benefited from the absence of overt gender discrimination in health care, as
a result of the provision of free health services. The priority given to maternal and child health
services for over 6 decades and the organization since the 1970s of primary health care
particularly through family health workers located in communities island-wide have also had a
beneficial impact.
Consequently, health indicators have been high relative to Sri Lanka’s economic level as
a low-income country. Mortality rates as reported outside conflict-affected areas is less than
6/1,000, infant mortality rate (IMR) is 17, child mortality rate (<5 years) is 19, and the maternal
mortality rate (MMR) is 23 per 100,000. Further, female mortality rates and female infant
mortality are lower than male rates. The Government envisages the decline of IMR to 15 and
MMR to 19 by 2005 to move toward meeting the MDGs for 2015. Life expectancy is computed
to be 73.0—70.7 years for men and 75.4 years for women.
However, this decline in mortality rates has not seen, concomitantly, a significant decline
in morbidity, with negative implications for the quality of life of women. Illnesses such as
diarrhea, dysentery, malaria, and tuberculosis have persisted with sporadic epidemics and
hypertension, diabetes, cancers endangering the health of women and men. HIV/AIDS has been
added to sexually transmitted diseases, although its incidence is not yet high and the male-female
ratio of victims has been 1.7:1. Sri Lanka’s suicide rates have declined but are still unacceptably
high, and women as caregivers in the family have been adversely affected by increasing
substance abuse.
The major reasons for the absence of a significant decline in morbidity are poor
environmental conditions and deterioration in the quality of the free health services that are
available to the majority of the population. Safe drinking water is available to 75.4% of the
population and satisfactory sanitation to 72.6%, but only to 24.8% and 35.5%, respectively, of the
estate population. Solid waste management is a critical issue in the urban sector.
Medical services are extensive. It has been estimated that only 7% of the population lack
access to health care. For instance, antenatal care is available to 98.4% of the population
including 94.3% in the estate sector. Trained personnel have assisted in childbirth in the case of
96.6% of mothers—99% in Colombo, 98.1% in other urban centers, 97.3% in the rural sector,
and 84.7% in the estate sector. Postnatal care is being utilized by 83% of mothers. Around 99% of
children have been immunized by the end of the third year. Complete immunization against
tuberculosis is universal, diphtheria 88%, polio 88%, and measles 81%.2 All general hospitals
have antenatal and family planning clinics that offer health education and administer tetanus
toxoid to pregnant women. Around 300 well-women clinics have been organized in State medical
institutions that provide services such as screening for hypertension, diabetes, breast cancer, pap
smears, etc.
Nevertheless, the quality of health services needs to be improved substantially,

particularly in institutions in the periphery. Base and provincial hospitals and maternity homes
outside major cities tend to be underequipped with human and material resources resulting in
congestion in hospitals in urban centers. The percentage of public expenditure on health of gross
domestic product (GDP) is only 1.7% and reduction of expenditure, escalation in costs of drugs
and expansion of private health services under the structural adjustment programs have had
adverse consequences for the health status of low-income families. Half the outpatient care is
now by the private sector but private hospitals and medical services of high quality are limited
chiefly to the city of Colombo. National statistics conceal district-wise disparities and exclude
conflict-affected areas.
2
Department of Census and Statistics 2002.
A major casualty of the structural adjustment program was the food subsidy. Its
conversion into food stamps at the end of 1978 and the erosion in value of these stamps with
rising inflation created hardships for the poor and increased the incidence of undernutrition
among women and children. The absorption of food stamps in a relatively politicized State
poverty-alleviation program has virtually foreclosed a universal nutritional safety net. The recent
Demography and Health Survey has reported a decline in the high levels of undernutrition among
children under 5 years that has prevailed over 2 decades but the incidence is still too high to
ensure satisfactory nutritional levels. It was reported that 11.9% boys and 15.3% girls were
stunted; 15.1% and 12.6%, respectively, were wasted; and 29.0% and 29.8% were underweight.
National level data pertaining to the nutritional levels of women are not available but micro
studies of the health status of pregnant and lactating women indicate severe anemia among 25–
39% and low hemoglobin levels in 60% of these women. The incidence of low birth weight of
babies, which is at least a partial indicator of maternal undernutrition, declined from over 20% to
17% in 2000, 15.5% among male infants, and 17.7% among female infants—but still it is very
high in some districts.3
State and nongovernmental agencies organize family planning programs. Contraceptive

prevalence has increased to 71%, the crude birth rate is 18/1,000 and the total fertility rate is 2.2.
Family planning programs are integrated in maternal and child health services and are not
enforced by legal or policy measures. Women have access to these services, irrespective of
spouses’ approval. Nevertheless, women’s reproductive rights are limited by the practice, which
is not legally mandatory, but is administratively enforced, of the requirement of the spouse’s
consent in writing for sterilization. Abortion is not legal except to save the mother’s life, but illicit
abortions are reported on a wide scale.
Effective programs have yet to be implemented in the areas of adolescent health,

occupational health (in which area Sri Lanka has yet to ratify some of the International Labour
Organisation [ILO] Conventions), geriatric care for the rapidly increasing numbers of aging
women, mental health, and the impact of domestic violence and political violence on women’s
health.
Education and Training
Education in Sri Lanka has been recognized widely as a basic right and as an instrument
of upward socioeconomic mobility for at least 6 decades. The positive policies introduced by Sri
Lankan policymakers during the transition years between direct colonial rule and political
independence, of free primary, secondary and tertiary education; the change in the medium of
instruction; and the establishment of an island-wide network of primary and secondary schools
were continued during the postindependence years. Free education in particular reduced the need
for parents to invest exclusively in the education of their sons.
3
Department of Census and Statistics 2002.
Even though economic constraints continue to be a barrier to promoting equal

educational opportunities for boys and girls, free education has been a major agent of progress
toward gender equality and poverty reduction. The synergies that are evident in the impact of the
access of women to education on their utilization of health and other basic services, and at least
for a minority, to remunerative employment, have improved their quality of life and enhanced
their contribution to national development.
There have been vicissitudes in policy formulation and implementation. The reduction of
social sector expenditure and the low priority given to what were mistakenly seen as “social
policies” in the implementation of structural adjustment programs in the 1980s slowed progress.
In the 1990s however, better prioritization of educational policies and programs received a boost
from the ratification of the UN Jomtien declaration on “Education for All,” the ongoing education
reforms introduced in the late 1990s, and increasing donor support for education.
Provision of General Education
An island-wide network of around 10,000 schools provides opportunities for primary and
secondary education. As the majority of households have access to a primary school within 2
kilometers and as around 96% of the schools have been co-educational for decades and less than
1% of the schools are private schools, girls from most socioeconomic strata have had relatively
extensive access to education. The numbers of Sinhalese, Tamil, and Muslim schools are
representative of the ethnic composition in the population.
Economic constraints and inequalities in resource allocation have, however, perpetuated

socioeconomic and district-wise disparities in the provision of education. Only 5.8% of the
schools in 1996 and 6.1% in 2002 provided science education facilities at the senior secondary
level—the level which is the avenue to higher education and urban-rural disparities are very wide.
Girls are particularly disadvantaged in access to science education at this level.
Around one fourth of the schools (27.4% in 2002) have less than 100 students and are
virtually neglected in the provision of facilities.4 In fact, the indiscriminate closure of “small”
schools in the late 1990s has endangered the access of girls in economically disadvantaged
communities to even primary education as girls are likely to be more disadvantaged by mobility
constraints in remote areas. Around 775 schools are found in the plantation sector. While their
quality has improved with the assistance of specific donor support programs, they still suffer from
their isolation and neglect in plantation enclaves under the British colonial administration.
The quality of education provided in schools has tended to deteriorate over the years as a
consequence of budgetary constraints. Quality inputs have been provided under the education
reforms but inequalities persist. Curricula reforms have been introduced under the education
reforms to effect a transformation from rote learning to activity-based learning and to the
development of the total personality of the child. There is, however, a clear relationship between
4
Ministry of Education 1996 and 2002.
the socioeconomic background of students, school facilities, and educational performance of

students, which affects girls and boys in low-income families.
Table 1: Percentage of Girls of Total Enrollment in Schools
1998 2002
% %
Total Female Total Female
Female Female
Grades 1–5 1,801,387 873,633 48.5 1,705,056 834,767 48.9
Grades 6-8/6–9 1,342,459 665,753 49.6 1,306,319 644,198 49.3
Grades
727,157 378,888 52.1 655,687 331,909 50.6
9–11/10–11
Grades 12–13
53,039 23,657 44.6 70,635 33,233 47.04
Science
Grades 12–13 Arts 140,728 94,096 66.0 156,175 101,665 65.1
Grades 12–13
70,268 34,119 48.6 89,215 43,268 48.5
Commerce
Grades 12 –13 Total 264,035 151,872 57.5 316,025 178,166 56.4
Grades 1 – 13 Total 4,134,838 2,070,146 50.1 3,984,740 1,989,046 49.9
Source: Annual School Census 1998, Ministry of Education 2002.
Participation, Retention and Performance in Education
The Demographic Survey (Department of Census and Statistics 1994) reported 89.4%
male and 89.5% female participation in the 5–14 age group and 53.4% and 55.3%, respectively,
in the 15–19 age group. The 2001 Census data are not available to compute educational
participation rates for each age group but the Education for All assessment in 1998 reported a
participation rate of 95%. Retention rates of those who enter the school system (estimated to be
around 97%) are reported, on the basis of annual school census data, to have been 94.7% for boys
and 95.8% for girls in 1996 and 96.9% and 98.3%, respectively, in 2001 at the end of primary
education (Grade 5); 71.6% for boys and 81.45% for girls in 1996 and 79.1% and 86.3%,
respectively, in 2001 at the end of junior secondary education (Grade 9); and overall, 56.9% at
the end of Grade 11 and 37.2% at the end of Grade 13 in 2001. While female participation rates at
these levels have been higher than the participation rates of males over almost 3 decades,
“dropping out” from schools increases sharply in the senior secondary grades. Table 1 and Figure
1 which present enrollment by levels indicate that 50.6% of all students in Grades 10–11 and
56.4% in Grades 12–13 were girls in 2002―a situation that has prevailed since the 1970s,
resulting partly from the fact that girls have relatively less access to employment.
Fig. 1. Percentage of Girls and Boys of Total Enrollment in Schools
60.0
56.4
50.0
51.0 50.7 49.3 49.4 50.6
48.9
40.0 43.6
30.0
20.0
10.0
0.0
Gr. 1-5 Gr. 6-8 & 6-9 Gr. 9-11 & 10-11 Gr. 12-13 Total
Male Female
Source: School Census 2002, Ministry of Education.
These statistics indicate that Sri Lanka has still to achieve the MDG of universal primary
education but has virtually achieved the second goal—gender equality in participation in primary
and secondary education. Nonschool-going is concentrated largely in low-income urban
neighborhoods, remote and deprived villages, in plantation labor communities and, in recent
years, in conflict-affected areas. It is interesting to note that while plantation children are still
disadvantaged in access to education and have a relatively high incidence of nonschooling and
“dropping out,” near gender equality in enrollment in primary education has been achieved over
the last few years and more girls than boys continue in senior secondary education as in the rest
of the country. It appears therefore that economic constraints rather than gender affect the access
of girls to education in Sri Lanka.
Performance-wise too, gender differences are minimal at entry to Grade 1, at the Grade 5
Scholarship examination and at the public examination at the end of Grade 13―the highest grade
in the school system.
Table 2: University Admission by Sex
Academic 1995–1996 2001–2002

Stream T M F %F T M F %F
Arts 3,101 1,105 1,996 64.4 4,039 1,089 2,950 73.0
Management 845 496 349 41.3 1,532 716 815 53.2
Studies
Commerce 882 445 437 49.5 837 382 455 54.4
Law 198 77 121 61.1 200 41 159 79.5
Science 1,108 612 496 44.8 2,625 1,619 1,006 38.3
Medicine 876 517 359 40.9 871 407 464 53.3
Dental 76 37 39 51.3 86 47 39 45.3
Science
Veterinary 70 33 37 52.8 87 54 33 37.9
Medicine
Agriculture 273 142 131 47.9 624 309 315 50.5
Engineering 722 648 74 10.2 985 807 178 18.1
Architecture 45 14 31 68.9 102 26 76 74.5
Quantity 31 26 05 16.1 51 34 17 33.3
Surveying
Computer - - - - 106 77 29 27.4
Sci. & IT
Total 8,464 4,389 4,075 48.1 12,144 5,615 6,529 53.8
Source: Sri Lanka University Statistics 2002, University Grants Commission.
Tertiary Education
Sri Lanka has currently 13 universities, 6 postgraduate institutes and 7 non-graduate

institutes under the purview of the University Grants Commission. University places are available
for only 2% of the 20–24 age group and there is considerable frustration among secondary school
students who qualify but fail to gain admission. The percentage of women students of all entrants
has increased from 48.1% in 1995–1996 to 53.8% in 2001–2002 (see Table 2). Similarly, the
percentage of women of total enrollment has increased also from 45.4% in 1995/96 to 53.5% in
2001–2002 (see Table 3). Women are seen to be the majority of entrants to the Law, Architecture,
and Arts Faculties—79.5%, 74.5% and 73.03%, respectively, in 2001–2002. In consonance with
the gender division in the labor market they were under-represented in Engineering and Applied
Science (18%), Computer Science and Information and Technology (27.4% in each) and Quantity
Surveying (33.3%).
Table 3: University Enrollment
Academic 1995–1996 2001–2002

Stream M F Total %F M F Total %F
Arts 4,919 7,290 12,209 59.7 17,180 5,339 11,841 77.4
Performing
- - - - 2,496 565 1,931 77.4
Arts
Commerce/
Management 4,156 3,191 7,347 43.4 - - - -
Studies
Management
- - - - 10,878 5,438 5,440 50.1
& Commerce
Law 416 598 1,014 58.9 2,776 1,464 1,312 48.4
Science 3,548 2,094 5,642 37.1 - - - -
Medicine 2,859 2,040 4,899 41.6 5,112 2,706 2,406 47.1
Indigenous
- - - - 787 295 492 62.5
Medicine
Dental
175 196 371 52.5 - - - -
Science
Dentistry - - - - 434 202 232 53.5
Vet. Med. 182 187 369 50.7 376 183 193 51.3
Agriculture 867 650 1,517 42.8 2,313 1,118 1,195 51.7
Engineering 2,787 369 3,156 11.7 - - - -
Engineering
& App. - - - - 4,843 4,065 788 16.4
Science
Architecture
& Quantity 169 104 273 38.1 - - - -
Surveying
Architecture - - - - 250 112 138 55.2
Quantity
- - - - 169 124 45 26.6
Surveying
Total 20,078 16,719 36,797 45.4 58,035 26,983 31,052 53.5
Source: Sri Lanka University Statistics 2002, University Grants Commission.
Few alternative opportunities exist in higher education. Professional courses are

conducted by institutions such as the Law College, Colleges of Education, Institute of Social
Development, National Institute of Library Studies, Institute of Chartered Accountants and
Chartered Institute Management Accountancy, in all of which a substantial percentage of students
are women. However, in the Advanced Institutes of Technical Education and in the Institutes of
Information Technology, the percentage of women enrolled in courses leading to professional
employment in burgeoning areas is deplorably low, thereby reinforcing the gender division in the
labor market.
Technical and Vocational Education
This pattern of gender differentiation in enrollment is seen also in the island-wide

network of technical and vocational institutes, now 37 in number. In the oldest of them, the
Technical Colleges, gender imbalances in enrollment have continued for decades. Less than 25%
are enrolled in technician courses. The percentage of women enrolled in courses in technical
trades is abysmally low, and women are preponderant in textiles and in courses reinforcing their
traditional servicing roles such as in secretarial, accounting, nursing, and in languages (see Table
4).
A similar pattern of enrollment prevails in the district and rural vocational training
centers of the Vocational Training Authority with a concentration of women in dressmaking
courses. The National Apprenticeship and Training Authority has currently no women students in
its Apprenticeship Training Institute while 19.1% of those enrolled in its Technical Training
Institute are women. Only 25.9% of participants in its enterprise-based training programs in the
provinces and 15.3% of apprentices placed in workplaces are women. Women apprentices are
chiefly in textile, garment related and clerical establishments.5 The National Youth Services
Council skills training programs are virtually defunct. Agricultural courses enroll few men and
women students relative to the size and needs of the agriculture sector. IT attracts women
students but they are concentrated at the lower level of operations, analogous to secretarial
courses.
Hence the tertiary and secondary vocational education sector, which should have the
closest links with the labor market, equip women with a narrow range of skills and marginalizes
them in a changing economy. A tracer study of women trained in state vocational training
institutes in two districts found that students moved from one short-term program to another,
acquiring qualifications that do not often meet the demands of the labor market, resulting in a
high incidence of unemployment among these “trained” women.6
Literacy
Male and female literacy rates were 94.3% and 89.4% in 1996–1997 in 17 districts
(Central Bank of Ceylon, 1996–1997), and 92.3% and 89.2% at the 2001 Census in 18 districts,
that is, with the addition of Ampara, a district with relatively low literacy levels. These statistics
exclude the Northern and Eastern Provinces as national surveys could not be conducted in
conflict-affected localities in these provinces. Female literacy levels were relatively low in 2001
in Nuwara Eliya, Badulla, and Ratnapura districts with their large concentrations of plantations
and in Moneragala district, the most economically and socially disadvantaged district in the
country (Table 5). Gender differences in literacy rates are minuscule in the population below 50
years—the postfree education generations.
5
National Apprenticeship and Training Authority, 2003.
6
Jayaweera, 2002.
Table 4: Enrollment in Technical Colleges
Skills 1998 2003

T F %F T F %F
Technology/ Eng. 2,555 589 23.1 3,780 668 17.7
Industrial Tech. - - - 306 73 23.9
Jewelry Design &
29 13 44.8 69 25 36.2
Manufacture
Gem cutting &
15 8 53.3 7 4 42.9
Polishing
Quantity Surveying 577 202 35.0 993 343 34.5
Draughtsmanship 1,001 555 55.4 1,105 585 52.9
Mktng./ Bus. Studies 501 284 56.7 417 233 55.9
Acctg. Technicians 1,412 823 58.3 1,718 1,160 67.5
Secretarial 1,998 1,898 94.9 1,340 1,310 97.8
Comp. Applications 173 102 58.9 130 90 69.2
Public Admin. 157 93 59.2 - - -
Nursing 56 56 100.0 23 23 100.0
Home Economics 45 45 100.0 - - -
Hotel Housekeeping 37 01 2.7 - - -
Tailoring - - - 42 13 30.9
Textiles/Batiks 147 126 85.7 39 35 89.7
Technical Trades 3,206 219 6.8 4,038 36 0.9
Furniture/Crafts 61 09 14.8 34 2 5.9
Construction 509 36 7.1 621 203 32.7
Agriculture 140 75 53.6 224 113 50.4
English 2,129 1,228 57.7 2,257 1,403 62.2
Japanese 20 12 60.0 21 13 61.9
Total 14,794 6,375 43.1 17,164 6,331 36.9
Source: Department of Technical Education, 1998, 2003.
Education and Socialization
Access to education has widened the horizons of women and improved their life chances.
But education is also a major agency of socialization and it is in this respect that the curriculum
and “hidden curriculum” or social climate of educational institutions have failed to perform a
transformative role. While there are no legal barriers to entry to any course and no official gender
differentiation now in curriculum organization, the influence of gender role stereotypes prevailing
in the family and society are mirrored in educational institutions. Textbooks still reflect such
stereotypes although their incidence has declined. Consequently girls and women tend to opt for
what are perceived to be gender appropriate careers as seen earlier in enrollment statistics.
Education has failed to

effectively counter the impact of Table 5: Literacy Rates by District
negative gender norms or to overtly
District 2001
promote gender equality. The ‘Life
Male Female Total
Competencies’ program introduced in Colombo 94.0 93.1 93.6
the secondary school curriculum was Gampaha 95.6 94.9 95.3
intended to engender the content of Kalutara 93.4 92.3 92.8
education but has been weak and has Kandy 92.8 89.0 90.9
been peripheral in the curriculum. In Matale 90.2 86.0 88.1
schools, the behavioral expectations of Nuwaraeliya 87.1 76.6 81.7
the students of the school management Galle 93.7 92.2 92.9
and teachers are gender differentiated, Matara 91.5 88.2 89.8
based on norms of docility and relative Hambantota 91.4 86.8 89.1
passivity for girls and leadership and Kurunegala 93.4 90.6 91.9
activity for boys. In universities gender Puttalam 91.6 90.2 90.9
issues have not been incorporated in a Anuradhapura 92.3 88.9 90.6
core course to promote more positive Polonnaruwa 90.9 88.8 89.9
attitudes among men and women Badulla 88.1 80.2 84.0
students. Consequently the gendered Moneragala 88.0 83.6 85.8
impact of education reflects Ratnapura 89.4 85.0 87.2
contradictory trends. Girls are Kegalle 93.9 89.6 91.3
Source: Household Income and Expenditure Survey
encouraged to pursue education to the
1990–1991, Census 2001, Dept. of Census &
highest levels as most parents have Statistics.
equally high aspirations for daughters
and sons. Schools and universities reinforce these aspirations but have failed to empower girls
and women adequately to resist or challenge gendered social norms and oppressive social
practices that impinge negatively on their personhood and their life chances. A critical need
therefore is for specific educational programs to foster the economic and social empowerment of
women.
Information and Communication Technology
The gender digital divide is wide in burgeoning areas of communication and employment
in an increasingly globalized environment. After a late start, Sri Lanka is now promoting
computer studies and Internet connectivity to develop aspects such as e-learning, e-commerce and
e-governance. Institutions such as schools, universities, teacher education institutions and
vocational training centers are being equipped gradually to function as purveyors of information
and communication technology skills. There are plans to establish telecenters, cyber cafes, and e-
kiosks for the use of the wider community.
While women are likely to have equal access to facilities in institutions, and to transfer
their skills from typing to the use of computer applications, the few studies that exist
(Wanasundera 2001) indicate that their participation in higher education programs in IT and in
higher level employment such as in software development and hardware is still very limited.
Even the very few NGOs (including women’s organizations) that have attempted to
extend the outreach of IT into rural areas have made slow progress in the context of financial,
infrastructure, and language constraints. The potential of ICT in distance learning, disseminating
relevant information, facilitating social interchange and economic transactions, expanding
opportunities for economic activities, promoting gender equality, and accelerating the pace of
change in the lives of women and their families is being realized but has yet to be utilized on a
scale that could ensure significant outcomes.
Economic Activities
Women in Sri Lanka have Table 6: Labor Force Participation

been engaged in economic activities
over centuries of history. In recent 1999 2002
decades, their contribution as factory Total participation
workers, migrant domestic workers, Total labor force participation 52.8 49.5
and plantation workers has been the Male labor force participation 68.2 67.2
lifeline of the export-oriented Female labor force participation 36.6 32.5
economy. Nevertheless, their labor Urban
force participation rates have been Total labor force participation 42.8 47.5
underestimated in macro surveys and Male labor force participation 61.5 66.8
have been around half of male Female labor force participation 26.1 28.6
participation rates as a consequence of Rural
the relative invisibility of some of Total labor force participation 53.9 49.8
their economic activities in the Male labor force participation 69.3 67.2
informal sector. Female labor force Female labor force participation 38.5 33.1
participation rates have tended also to % Female labor force
Total labor force 35.3 33.4
fluctuate unlike male participation
Source: Quarterly Report of the Sri Lanka Labour Force
rates, underscoring their greater
Surveys: First Quarter 1999; Second Quarter
vulnerability to policy shifts and 2002 (excluding North and East), Department of
adverse global economic trends. Census and Statistics.
Female labor force participation rates
have, in fact, declined steadily since 1998, from 36.6% in 1999 to 32.5% in 2002 and their share
of the “official” labor force has been reduced from 35.3% to 33.4% (Table 6). This decline in
economic activity rates has been in the rural sector, and while factors that contributed to this
decline have not been identified clearly by researchers, there is little doubt that global economic
recession and the consequent closure of rural garment factories have endangered women’s niche
in manufacturing industry. The removal in 2005 of export quotas for garments under the Multi-
Fibre Agreement is likely to exacerbate the employment problems of women unless alternative
opportunities are provided through the implementation of pro-active strategies.
These adverse trends are also reflected in unemployment statistics. Unemployment rates
that declined progressively since the mid-1990s to 6.8% male unemployment and 11.8% female
unemployment in 1999, and 5.8% and 11.1%, respectively, in 2000, rose again to 7.3% and
14.8% in mid-2002 (Table 7). It is seen that women have been more adversely affected than men.
It is interesting to note, too, that female unemployment rates have continued to be double those of
men for 3 decades, irrespective of whether unemployment increased or declined. Age wise, there
is a wide gender gap in unemployment rates in the 20–29 age group (Figure 2).
Male unemployment rates by

educational level have stabilized by Fig. 2. Unemployment Rates – 2002
2000, but female unemployment rates
continue to rise with increasing 50
educational attainment (Table 8). It is 42.3 Male Female
seen too in Table 8 that while around 40
half the total unemployed are women 36.1
(as compared with one third of the 32.6
labor force), nearly 70% of the 30

26.3
educated unemployed (with a complete
secondary education or higher 20 21.3
education) are currently women. A

recent study of graduate employment
among a cohort of university entrants 10 8.5
6.8
found that university education had
1.8 1.8
been an agent of upward occupational 0
1.3
mobility for only a minority and for 15-19 yrs. 20-24 yrs. 25-29 yrs. 30-39 yrs. 40 yrs. & over
men rather than women.7 Clearly Source: Quarterly report of the Sri Lanka Labour Force
women have equal access to education Survey: First Quarter 1999, Second Quarter 2002
but not to employment and are unable (Excluding North and East), Department of Census
to translate their educational gains into and Statistics.
economic rewards.
Employment status-wise, there has been a positive trend in the increase in the percentage
of women in the female labor force in regular or casual employment from 51.7% in 1999 to
58.4% in 2002 and a decline in the percentage of women unpaid family workers from 30.3% to
23.0% (Table 9 and Figure 3). Casualization of labor has been a continuing response to macro
economic reforms over 2 decades, and is likely to increase with deregulation of the labor market.
Structural changes in the economy have resulted in the decline of the percentage of women
employed in the agriculture, fisheries, and forestry sectors from 48.6% of the female labor force
in 1999 to 39.5% in 2002 (and men from 37.3% to 31.5%) and increase in the percentage of
employed women in the manufacturing sector from 19.3% to 23.9% (and men from 10.8% to
12.9%) during this period.
A higher percentage of women workers continue to be in professional and clerical

employment than men, but the “glass ceiling” still operates as 1.6% of the male labor force and
only 0.6% of the female labor force were employed at senior administration or management level
7
Jayaweera and Sanmugam 2002.
in 2002. A few women have

been appointed to hitherto Table 7: Unemployment Rates
male areas such as vice-
1999 2002
chancellors of universities and
Total M F Total M F
five women hold positions as
Total 8.6 6.8 11.8 9.8 7.3 14.8
secretaries (administrative Unemployment
heads) of ministries as Rate
compared with the solitary 15 – 19 years 25.5 24.1 27.7 34.0 32.6 36.1
woman Secretary in 1997. 20 – 24 26.4 20.8 34.7 32.6 26.3 42.3
Nevertheless, bias against 25 – 29 12.9 9.7 18.4 13.0 8.5 21.3
appointment of women to 30 – 39 5.6 4.4 8.0 3.4 1.8 6.8
high-level decision making 40 – 44 2.5 2.2 2.9
positions persists, particularly 40 yrs. & over 1.5 1.3 1.8
in the private sector. 45 yrs. & over 0.9 1.0 0.6
(Aturupane 1996). A gender- Source: Quarterly Report of the Sri Lanka Labour Force Surveys:
based demarcation of the First Quarter 1999; Second Quarter. 2002 (excluding North
labor market persists at all and East), Department of Census & Statistics.
levels. Women continue to be concentrated in teaching, nursing, midwifery, secretarial assistance,
domestic service, assembly line industries, and agriculture and to be under-represented among
technologists, engineers, surveyors, technicians, and skilled workers.
The rapid pace of Table 8: Unemployment Rates by Educational Level

globalization of finance, and Sex (2000)
trade, production, and
communication has had a Educational Total Male Female % Female of
pervasive impact on macro Level Rates Rates Rates Unemployed
economic policies and life Below Grade 5 1.0 0.9 1.1 37.9
styles. More women are Grade 5–10 7.5 6.3 10.2 39.6
employed in expanding GCE (O/L) Grade 11.3 8.8 16.0 49.8
areas such as telecom- 11–12
GCE A/L Grade 13 14.9 8.8 21.4 69.4
munications and finance
Higher Education
than before but major
Total 7.6 5.8 11.1 49.7
changes in the employment Source: Quarterly Report of the Sri Lanka Labour Force Survey (all 4
scenario have taken place quarters), Department of Census and Statistics.
cumulatively over the last 2
decades, and positive changes are juxtaposed with negative trends.
In the agriculture sector, low productivity and inadequate incomes have compelled
women in small farm families to move from unpaid family labor to other occupations,
particularly in the garment industry and in overseas domestic labor. Plantations are undergoing a
process of privatization of management and sequentially, ownership. Concomitantly,
casualization of labor and labor shortages are found on plantations. Young women and men in
plantation labor families tend now to look for employment opportunities outside plantation
enclaves, the women seeking chiefly domestic service in urban households or overseas as migrant
labor.
In the industry sector, Table 9: Percentage Distribution of Employed

rural industries have yet to be by Employment Status and Sex
revitalized, despite official
rhetoric. Absence of off-form 1999 2002
employment opportunities in T M F T M F
rural communities is the major Employer 1.6 2.3 0.4 3.1 4.2 0.7
factor that propels rural women Employee 54.7 56.2 51.7 57.9 57.7 58.4
to work in garment factories or Own Acct.
28.8 34.6 17.6 28.6 33.5 17.9
in domestic service overseas. Worker
Traditional women’s industries Unpaid Family 14.9 6.9 30.3 10.4 4.6 23.0
Worker
such as handloom weaving and
Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
the coir industry remain Source: Quarterly Report of the Sri Lanka Labour Force Surveys:
depressed, lacking the capacity First Quarter 1999; Second Quarter 2002 (excluding
and support to be successful in North and East Department of Census and Statistics).
a competitive market.
The expansion of export-oriented industries, which account for around 80% of exports,
has been dependent largely on the fortunes of the garment industry in which over 80% of
employees are women. Three export processing zones, Katunayake and Biyagama near Colombo
and Koggala in the South, an increasing number of industrial estates located in different parts of
the country, and around 150 rural garment factories provide employment opportunities for young
women between 18 and 30 years. The relocation of labor-intensive industries in low-income
countries by transnational corporations, and reliance on the “comparative advantage” of low cost
female labor have created employment opportunities as well as new forms of gender inequalities
and hardships for women.
Women garment factory workers from families with irregular incomes have brought
stability to families and have achieved a measure of empowerment through control of their
independent cash incomes. But these women have been confined chiefly to semi-skilled assembly
line production and have had few opportunities of upward occupational mobility over 2 decades
despite the fact that the majority are secondary educated. Their working hours are long, and likely
to be longer with recent revision of labor legislation to permit more overtime work. Wages are
relatively low in the formal sector, and these women tend to be exposed to occupational health
hazards. Job insecurity has increased in an adverse economic environment, and employers
dispense with labor with impunity in a context in which trade union activity is restricted.8
The external or peripheral market has expanded with increasing subcontracting of labor-
intensive tasks to home-based workers who are mostly women. These women receive wages that
are often below minimum wage levels and are unprotected by labor legislation. As relatively
invisible workers in an informal labor market they are at the mercy of intermediary
subcontractors who siphon off a major share of piece rate payments. At the same time women
8
Jayaweera and Sanmugam 2001.
have been able to engage in economic activities in their homes without detriment to their
childcare responsibilities.9
In the services sector, retrenchment Fig. 3. Percentage Distribution of

policies with compensation presented as a Employed by Employment Status
‘golden handshake’ has threatened women’s and Sex 2002
stability in their traditional niche, the public
service. Through the 1990s and early 2000
State employees in ministries and public 4%
MALE
5%
corporations such as the Mahaweli Dev-
elopment Programme have been offered
incentives to ‘retire’ prematurely with limited 34%
57%
compensation. Public industrial establishments
have been closed down or handed over to the
private sector. Both large mills and small
power loom centers have virtually dis- Employer Employee
appeared. Own Account Unpaid Family Worker
A recent study of retrenched/retired

workers found that there has been
FEMALE
socioeconomic differentiation and gender 1%
differentiation in the impact of this policy.
23%
Retired workers with higher educational
attainment and employment prospects have 18% 58%
been successful in obtaining employment in
the private sector and overseas or have used
their resources to invest in business
enterprises, some of them earning far more Employer Employee
than they had earned in the public service. On Own Account Unpaid Family Worker
the other hand, service workers and semi-
skilled workers in low income families have Source: Quarterly Report of the Sri Lanka
used their compensation to pay off debts or Labour Force Survey: First Quarter
build houses, have failed to find employment 1999, Second Quarter 2002 (Excluding
and were in dire economic straits. Women North and East), Department of Census
who had withdrawn from the labor force to and Statistics.
provide better childcare find it difficult to return to employment. Women in many families have
been ‘domesticated,’ suffering from lack of access to one’s own income and from a sense of
isolation and frustration through inability to meet family needs (Jayaweera, Sanmugam, and
Amarasuriya 2003). There have been no efforts made to retrain women in their economically
productive years to access alternative employment opportunities.
9
Jayaweera and Sanmugam, 2000.
Table 10: Departure for Foreign Employment
1997 2001
T M F %F T M F %F
Prof. Jobs 573 534 39 6.8 1,139 1,070 69 6.1
Mid. Level Jobs 1,635 1,386 249 15.2 3.770 3,199 571 15.1
Admin. Jobs 3,579 3,008 571 15.9 6,011 4,629 1,382 22.9
Skilled Jobs 24,502 15,832 8,670 35.4 36,702 25,220 11,482 31.3
Unskilled Jobs 20,565 16,792 3,773 18.3 33,449 25,627 7,822 23.4
Housemaids 99,429 - 99,429 100.0 102,811 - 102,811 100.0
Total 150,283 37,552 112,731 75.0 183.888 59,751 124,137 67.5
% Housemaids 66.2 88.2 55.9 82.8
Source: Statistical Handbook on Migration, 2001—Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment,
Colombo.
The phenomenon of women migrating for employment as domestic workers in affluent
countries began as a “trickle” in the late 1970s and escalated in the 1980s and 1990s. The
percentage of women of all migrant workers has declined however in the late 1990s with State
efforts to promote male migration. Women have migrated in recent years to work in garment
factories in West Asia, Maldives, and Mauritius, and as unskilled labor in hospitals and as illegal
workers in the Republic of Korea, but over 80% of women migrant workers continue to be
domestic workers (Table 10). Destinations have increased from oil-rich West Asia and East and
South East Asia to Cyprus and Western Europe. Working conditions vary from country to
country. In Cyprus for instance, unlike in many migrant destinations, women domestic workers
are protected by labor legislation (Wanasundera 2001). In Mauritius, Sri Lankan garment workers
have had stable employment but several garment factories in West Asia and in the Maldives have
been closed as profits fell with the economic recession in the United States, and Sri Lankan
women have been stranded in these countries without economic resources (Dias and
Wanasundera 2003). Whatever the situation, the vulnerability of these domestic workers and
garment factory workers to economic exploitation is an underlying factor as in their own country.
After years of abandoning migrant domestic workers to the mercies of the market, reports
of harassment, injustice, and sexual abuse in the workplace and malpractices in recruitment by
recruiting agents in Sri Lanka led the State to intervene since the mid-1990s to provide some
protection to workers. Consequently several programs have been in place—compulsory
registration, insurance, and training; subsidized credit facilities to assist departure, families left
behind, and to embark on economic activities on return; welfare measures overseas through labor
and welfare officers stationed in countries with large concentrations of women workers; programs
to assist children of these workers with scholarships and educational materials; and safe houses in
three destinations and a transit house for the sick near Colombo airport. Women workers receive
more protection and assistance now, though hardly commensurate with their remittances, which
rank highest or second highest in contribution to the national revenue.
Yet, unlicensed agents still recruit a minority. Cases of oppressive working conditions,
nonpayment of wages, and physical and sexual abuse resulting sometimes in death are still
reported (Table 11). Both success stories and destitution as a consequence of wastage of their
earnings by alcoholic or dissolute spouses are reported in` studies of returnees (Gamburd, 2002,
Jayaweera, Dias and Wanasundare, 2003). It is regrettable too that policy makers have
concentrated almost exclusively on domestic workers and have tended to abandon garment
workers to their fate in a context of economic turbulence across the globe. However, the UN
Convention on Migrant Workers and their Families, which Sri Lanka has ratified, came into force
on 1st July 2003. There are limits to the outreach of national policies to assist migrant workers
since the majority of workers are in countries such as West Asia in which they are excluded from
the protection of labour laws. The most critical need in addressing the issue of migrant workers is
the enforcement of bilateral agreements between receiving and sending countries and the
ratification of relevant international conventions by all these countries. It appears that there will
be a long road and many obstacles to reaching this goal unless there is international pressure on
receiving countries.
Table 11: Total Number of Complaints Received by Sex
1999 2001
T M F %F T M F %F
Nonpayment of 2,268 483 1,785 78.7 1,123 81 1,042 92.8
Agreed Wages
Lack of
Communication 1,973 166 1,807 91.6 1,708 100 1,608 94.1
Sickness 711 152 559 78.6 373 37 336 90.0
Harassment 1,805 144 1,661 92.0 1,193 29 1,164 97.6
Death – Natural 111 36 75 67.6 42 25 17 40.5
Death – Accidental 02 01 01 50.0 156 72 84 53.8
Death – Murder 03 - 03 100.0 02 - 02 100.0
Death – Suicide - - - - 11 01 10 91.0
Not sent back after
Completion of
Contract 710 239 471 66.3 1,361 96 1,265 92.9
Stranded – Lack of
Reception on Arrival 65 08 57 87.7 53 02 51 96.2
Problem at Home
(Sri Lanka) 16 01 15 93.8 220 11 209 95.0
Break of Terms &
Conditions of
Employment –
Contract Substitution 1,249 1,063 186 14.9 1,444 951 463 32.1
Stranded w/o
Employment 02 01 01 50.0 01 01 - 0.0
Others (Domestic
Sector) 643 25 618 96.1 186 06 180 96.8
Others (Nondomestic
Sector) 281 189 92 32.7 54 26 28 51.9
Total 9,839 2,508 7,331 74.5 7,927 1,438 6,489 81.9
Source: Conciliation Division, Information Technology Division, Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign
Employment.
Another area in which policy support has been weak or nonexistent is the informal sector
and the micro enterprises or self-employment in which a substantial proportion of women are
engaged. Policymakers have been articulate in extolling the benefits of self-employment, virtually
as a panacea for unemployment. But little concrete action has been taken to offer incentives or
support services to facilitate remunerative self-employment, as compared with the range of
incentives offered to large investors and private entrepreneurs. Although most low-income
women cannot benefit from programs such as the Small and Medium Enterprises project and its
credit lines, which have been in operation for a number of years, other credit schemes are
available at the micro level. Nevertheless, little attention has been paid to facilitating access to
inputs such as skills and management training, technology and market information that are
necessary for optimal utilization of credit.
Women with family resources have emerged as successful entrepreneurs in the

liberalized economy. A minority of women without resources but with initiative is engaged in
micro enterprises. Studies however, indicate that micro credit cum self- employment programs
have perpetuated poverty among the majority of low-income women who desperately need to
increase their incomes but who have been limited to producing for the “poverty market” of low-
income consumers and to earning minimal incomes. All studies pertaining to the urban and rural
informal sector document the unstable low-skill, low-income, multiple economic activities in
which women in low-income families are engaged for family survival and maintenance.
It is seen, therefore, that opportunities for women with high level and technology related
skills have expanded with globalization while the quality of employment available to the majority
of women workers has deteriorated. Even women with a secondary education face unemployment
or horizontal mobility rather than upward vertical mobility in a gender-segmented and restricted
labor market and an economy characterized by low transfer of technology and low productivity.
One of the MDGs pertains to the increase of women in wage employment. Currently less than
half the female labor force is engaged in wage employment in the formal sector although piece-
rate work in subcontracted industries also is a form of disguised wage employment. The
realization of this goal depends on the implementation of macro economic policies that will
promote growth and expand employment opportunities, thereby increasing the absorptive
capacity of the labor market.
Poverty
Poverty is a perennial problem in Sri Lanka and the incidence of poverty has fluctuated
but has not declined substantially during the last few decades. Poverty is multi-dimensional and
two aspects generally are considered for the analysis of poverty in a given situation, (i) income or
consumption poverty and (ii) the many other dimensions of human poverty.
Poverty data are not gender disaggregated as the household is used as the unit of analysis
and the household is assumed to be “gender neutral.” Poverty lines are computed on the basis of
the income required to meet specific food (calories) intake as well as nonfood requirements. A
lower poverty line demarcates the population in absolute poverty and a higher poverty line for
those on the fringes of absolute poverty or in transitional poverty. The analysis of data gathered
by the Household Income and Expenditure Surveys of 1990/91 and 1995/96 indicated that 20% of
the population were in absolute poverty (lower poverty line) in 1990/91 and 25% in 1995/96. The
higher poverty line gave figures of 31% in 1990/91 and 39% in 1995/96. The figure for 2002 has
yet to be computed using the same methodology.
Urban poverty is reported to have declined and poverty in the rural and estate sectors to
have increased since 1997. Recent trends reflect a low average economic growth rate of 4% in the
1990s; negative growth in 2001 and the impact of 2 decades of armed conflict. The MDG of
halving poverty from 1990 to 2015 will be difficult to achieve, despite slight improvement in the
Gini Coefficient from 0.34 in 1995/96 to 0.32 in 2002.10 Wide disparities in poverty levels persist
ranging from 55% (higher poverty line) in Moneragala district (the most economically
disadvantaged district), to 23% in Colombo in 1995/96. It appears economic progress has not
“trickled down” to the poor as expected and that a change in direction of macro economic policies
maybe required.
The only gender-disaggregated data available pertain to the mean income of “income
receivers”—a category that excludes the majority of women who earn their livelihood in the
informal sector or in home-based economic activities. As seen in Table 12, the percentage of
female income receivers has increased from 31.4% to 37.2% from 1996 to 2002 but the gender
gap in mean income has widened in all sectors. The male/female ratio has increased from 1.63 to
1.79 overall, from 1.68 to 1.87 in the urban sector, 1.60 to 1.78 in the rural sector, and 1.32 to
1.44 in the estate sector. In 1996/97 24.2% women employees and 15.0% of men employees
were reported to have had weekly earnings below Rs300. While disparities exist, conclusions
regarding the widening/reduction in gender gaps are difficult given the paricity of data.
Table 12: Income Receivers – Mean Income
1996–1997 2002
% Mean Income (Rs) % Mean Income (Rs)
Female Male - Female Male-
Receivers Male Female Female Receivers Male Female Female
of Total Ratio of Total Ratio
Total 31.4 6,556 4,025 1.63 37.2 8,476 4,722 1.79
Urban 33.9 10,955 6,521 1.68 38.7 14,182 7,570 1.87
Rural 29.8 6,082 3,810 1.60 36.4 7,803 4,369 1.78
Estate 47.9 2,922 2,208 1.32 45.8 4,190 2,897 1.44
Source: Report on Consumer Finance and Socio Economic Survey, 1996/97 and Central ADB Household
Income and Expenditure Survey, 2002 (excluding North and East), Department of Census and
Statistics.
10
Department of Census and Statistics, 2002.
Equally significant nonincome dimensions of poverty need to be examined to understand

this multi-faceted issue:
(i) employment – the preponderance of women among the working poor in the
agricultural sector, small industries, and the informal sector;
(ii) access to assets and economic resources such as land, housing;
(iii) human capabilities developed by access to entitlements in education and health
care and nutrition;
(iv) access to basic services such as water, sanitation, the marginalization and social
exclusion of the poor in isolated, remote locations without access to transport,
communication, electricity, markets, and infrastructure facilities;
(v) conflict related poverty; and
(vi) perceptions of poverty and in particular, the powerlessness and voicelessness of
the poor.
These dimensions will be discussed from a gender perspective in Chapter 3 in order to

identify the constraints and needs of women in poverty.
It is important also to examine the impact of social protection programs or safety nets and
special poverty alleviation programs on poor women and men. The safety net in nutrition
provided by the food subsidy in the earlier decades was eroded in the 1980s and has virtually
disappeared since the mid-1990s. The financial assistance provided to the indigent and to
institutions that care for vulnerable groups such as children, the differently abled, and the elderly
is miniscule. (Alailima 1995). With escalating living costs, pensioners appear to be moving into
poverty. Social insurance programs for categories of low-income workers are yet in their infancy.
Special poverty alleviation programs11 have been implemented to minimize the social costs of
macro economic reforms.
Environment
Women have been involved in environment management for centuries in their home
gardens and neighborhoods. The role that women can and should play in the development and
conservation of the environment came to international and national attention with the UN Rio
Conference in 1992 and its Agenda 21, which was an outcome of the popularization of the
concept of sustainable development articulated by the Brundtland Commission. Since then
environment and development have been linked closely. Interest in environmental issues per se
have tended to decline as reflected in the more muted deliberations at the Rio+10 Conference in
2002. However the perceived connection between environment degradation and poverty in
Poverty Reduction Strategy documents is likely to keep the issues alive. The ongoing conflict
between pro-environment and pro-development lobbies are also national issues.
11
Janasaviya (1989–1995) and Samurdhi (ongoing since 1995).
Besides the larger issues such as loss of biodiversity and global warming, national
resource depletion and related environmental issues impinge on the lives of women, particularly
women in low-income families. Sri Lanka is reported to have one of the highest deforestation
rates in Asia. The rapid loss of forest cover and soil erosion causes disasters such as landslides
and creates hardships for rural women in poor communities battling for family survival who are
deprived of access to natural resources such as fuel wood, supplementary food, raw materials for
handicrafts, and herbal medicine. Equally critical is the drying up of natural springs and over-
exploitation of groundwater and consequent difficulties in access to water in the Dry Zone for
domestic consumption and agriculture. Fishing communities are adversely affected by coastal
erosion.
While air pollution and absence of landfills for disposal of garbage affects urban families,
women in low-income families in their congested environments lack access to safe water and
clean sanitation and are exposed to environment health hazards that are exacerbated by pollution
from industrial effluents. Women are particularly affected by smoke pollution in their kitchens in
both urban and rural homes.
Environmental projects have addressed some of these problems. Women have been found
to be actively involved in the implementation of some projects, and this participation indicates the
potential for women to take a more decisive role as actors involved in planning, decision-making,
and management. Regrettably women are invisible in these tasks and are rarely provided space to
contribute at official level to the management and conservation of national resources.
The performance of the Central Environment Authority has been disappointing in this
respect. The National Environment Action Plan 1998–2001 has not conceptualized a role for
women although women’s environmental organizations have been active. Environment impact
assessments (EIAs) are mandatory for approval of development projects. These EIAs have a
social impact assessment component. A recent study to ascertain the extent to which gender
issues have been incorporated in EIAs found that gender concerns have not received
consideration even under the rubric of social impact (Vitarana 2000).
Gender-based Violence
The universal issue of gender-based violence remained a largely private issue that
affected the prestige of families until the 1990s. The UN Human Rights Conference in Vienna in
1993, its Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women, and the subsequent
appointment of a UN Rapporteur on the issue have underscored a rights based approach to the
phenomenon of gender-based violence. In Sri Lanka, the Women’s Charter of 1993, modeled on
CEDAW, has also a specific component on the protection of women and girls against violence.
The National Committee on Women established the Gender Complaints Unit in 2000 as required
under the Charter. The Human Rights Commission is also a focal point for action against gender-
based violence. Currently the Gender Equity Committee of the Regaining Sri Lanka program has
identified gender discriminatory laws and the Law Commission has been responsive.
The general perception is that there has been no decrease in such violence even after the
amendment of the Penal Code in 1995 and 1998 to increase penalties for rape and to bring within
its ambit other forms of violence such as incest, grave sexual abuse, sexual harassment, and
trafficking of women. The perceived increase could be due also to the higher visibility of these
issues as compared with the tendency earlier to conceal them under the cloak of family honor and
privacy.
Cases of rape and child abuse are reported in the press in numbers that reflect a high
incidence. Sexual harassment is still apt to be trivialized by men, and incest, which is largely
committed by male family members, tends to be accepted passively. Domestic violence
legislation is as yet in the preparatory process and abusive spousal relations and battering are
accepted with resignation in lieu of adequate avenues of redress. Sexual violence has increased in
situations of armed conflict. A regressive trend is political violence that erodes women’s rights
and dignity. Prostitution or commercial sex work is a traditional occupation but trafficking is less
prevalent, although it could be disguised as employment in urban areas or overseas employment
or tourism.
Gender-disaggregated comprehensive data are not available to assess the incidence of

violence. Ad hoc media monitoring by NGOs has revealed the magnitude of the task. A recent
study (Wijayatileke 2002) found that hospitals, police stations, and courts do not record gender-
disaggregated data, and that incidents of violence are often subsumed in records of accidents as
the victims are averse to reporting in public institutions and officials are insensitive to the issue of
domestic violence. Efforts are being made to train health personnel and law enforcement officials
to recognize and record incidents. Unless however reporting forms are developed and integrated
in administrative procedures little change can be expected in the situation.
Services to assist victims of violence against women are still ad hoc, limited and need to
be strengthened. The Special Women’s Bureau and Women and Children’s Desks located in
some police stations need strong official support, and capacity building in material and human
resources. Hot lines to these centers are a crying need. Crisis centers are limited to provision with
minimal facilities by four women’s organizations/nongovernment organizations (NGOs). It is not
surprising, therefore, that women victims, especially of domestic violence, are reluctant to seek
advice as they are compelled to return to the perpetrators in the absence of alternative
accommodation. Legal aid is again limited to the State Legal Aid Commission, the counseling
centers and a new intervention, Diri Piyasa of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs in some districts,
and a few NGOs and lawyers, all offering free services. Trauma counseling for victims is even
more limited in outreach. Donor agencies have supported such efforts in recent years but the
overall impact is minimal relative to needs. Underutilized health and community facilities could
be used if an adequate number of relevant personnel could be trained.
Sociocultural Constraints
Underpinning the development trends that have been reviewed, including policy
orientation and indicators of progress, are the sociocultural norms and concomitant practices, and
in particular, the social construction of gender that tend to shape the experiences of women.
Agents of socialization such as the family, society at large, education, and the media transfer
gender role assumptions and normative, asymmetrical gender relations through generations.
However, gender roles and relations are not static, the pace of economic and social development
is uneven, and women are not a homogenous group. Hence, the sociocultural constraints that
impinge on the lives of women and men in Sri Lanka present a shifting scenario of positive and
negative influences.
Gender role stereotypes imbedded in the perceptions of policymakers, administrators and

employers, and internalized by women and men are reflected in social and economic policies and
programs and political participation. Women have been disadvantaged by perceptions of men as
breadwinners, producers and community leaders and the normative relegation of women to their
reproductive role and to dependency and subordination. Patriarchal values are pervasive but less
oppressive than those in classic patriarchal relations as a consequence of some egalitarian features
in traditional society. Nevertheless, gender relations in the family, the workplace, and society are
often unequal in the binary power structure of dominance and subordination.
Development tends to mirror both change and continuity in gender roles and relations.
Gender role stereotypes influence the aspirations of women in relation to vocational education
programs at secondary and tertiary levels and even behavioral outcomes of education.
Occupational health receives low priority relative to programs that support the reproductive role
of women.
Micro level studies of the impact of macro economic changes on gender roles and
relations (Jayaweera and Sanmugam 2001b) have pointed to this juxtaposition of change and
resistance. Women’s economic roles have extended as a consequence of their rising educational
attainments, the demands of the labor market, and escalating costs of living but have not changed
the inequitable gender division of household labor significantly although there is evidence of
sharing in some dual earner families. However, women who work outside the home or earn
independent cash incomes have achieved a measure of economic empowerment, irrespective of
their location in the hierarchy of occupations as professionals, factory workers, or overseas
domestic labor. More men still have control of traditional assets such as land and housing, but
these working women were seen to control their income and the assets they create such as
independent bank accounts.
Physical mobility has increased as seen in the decision of women to migrate overseas for
employment. A pattern of joint decision making appears to prevail in many families irrespective
of whether women are employed or confined to domesticity. Economic empowerment has
contributed to more equitable gender relations in the family and in society. Families appear to
have less control over the selection of spouses by daughters. Dowries have been overshadowed
by income from employment. Sri Lanka is virtually free of extreme forms of gender
discrimination within families such as dowry deaths, foeticide, infanticide, and neglect of the girl
child. Where son preference exists, it is largely associated with concern for the perpetuation of
the family name or direct line of descendants.
Concepts of “purity” and concomitant double standards have survived in the incidence of
the iniquitous and unscientific “virginity test” that has acceptance among a substantial number of
educated women and men. Male dominance, control of female sexuality, and perceptions of
women as men’s property are reflected in the incidence of domestic violence and other forms of
gender-based violence such as rape, incest, and sexual harassment.
Overall, the subservience of the majority of women has declined with education and
employment but gendered norms still affect women negatively and even many educated
employed women with resources do not challenge oppressive social practices that negate their
personhood and individual worth. More gender-sensitive development policies in all sectors are
clearly required to accelerate the process of social change toward the realization of human rights
and dignity and gender equality.
Armed Conflict, Peace, and Reconciliation
Two decades of continuing armed conflict have almost torn the fabrics of Sri Lankan
society, impoverished the nation through loss of national revenue and defense expenditure
amounting to 5% of GDP and, therefore, slowing down economic growth, and devastated lives in
over a million families. Around 60,000–70,000 are reported to have been killed as a result of the
civil war in the North, and a lesser number during the uprising in the South in the late 1980s.
Around 600,000–800,000 are estimated to have been displaced from their homes in the North and
East and in villages in the North Central and Uva Provinces adjoining the war zone. Out-
migration has taken place. Welfare centers in the North and East and in the Puttalam district have
been homes to displaced families for an unconscionable number of years.
Women in these conflict-affected areas have had to share a disproportionate share of the
burden of survivors. Many have been thrust abruptly into positions of female heads of
households, responsible for the welfare of their families in a context of deprivation and
instability. In the welfare centers, facilities have been minimal and loss of privacy has been an
issue for women. Communities have been disrupted, infrastructure such as roads,
telecommunications, markets, and institutions such as schools and hospitals have been destroyed
and productive assets lost. Women have had to cope with family strategies in the absence of
shelter, food, basic services, education and means of livelihood for sustenance. The hiatus in
traditional agriculture and fishing has meant loss of income. All-pervasive is the trauma that is the
result of violence including gender-based violence, and perceptions of vulnerability and
powerlessness.
Similar disruption in living conditions has taken place in villages in adjoining

Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa, and Moneragala districts with loss of livelihoods, breakdown of
basic services, and fear and insecurity. In the South, widows of soldiers and wives of disabled
soldiers have become female heads of households or caregivers. Communities in several districts
in the South still bear the scars of the youth uprising over a decade ago.
The peace process following the Memorandum of Understanding between the State and
the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) has provided a respite from violence. While peace
negotiations are focused on a political settlement and meeting humanitarian needs, the process of
rehabilitation has commenced as envisaged in the Triple R program developed since 1999 for
Relief, Rehabilitation, and Reconciliation. The immediate tasks are de-mining, rehabilitation of
infrastructure and services, and resettlement of returnees or relocation of displaced people in
welfare centers. Multinational groups are engaged in needs assessments. Reconciliation and
promotion of national harmony needs both short-term and long-term programs.
Women have been invisible in the political peace process in an exclusively male
environment of political negotiations. In response to lobbying by women’s organizations, gender
related concerns have been incorporated into rehabilitation programs. More significantly, a
Gender Peace Committee was established in early 2003 comprising representatives of women in
the South and the LTTE. The committee has met twice and established a link between women in
the South and North but their work has been currently interrupted by the official delay in the
peace process. The role and needs of women and their families in this context are discussed in
Chapter 3.
Chapter 2 POLICIES AND PROGRAMS
National Policies and Programs
Since the late 1990s there has been an acceleration in the process of policy formulation at
the national level. In 1998, two national programs were initiated—the implementation of the
education reforms proposed by the National Education Commission, in the “Year of Educational
Reforms”—and the development of a Poverty Reduction Strategy and currently the “Regaining
Sri Lanka” policy.
National Education Policy
Policies increasing access to education have been universally implemented for over 6
decades and education has been a major agent in reducing gender and socioeconomic disparities.
The new policy package in the same tradition, introduced compulsory education legislation for
the 5–14 age group, developed a program to promote a more equitable distribution of secondary
education facilities throughout the country and introduced qualitative and innovative changes in
curricula and in management (National Education Commission 1997). Gender was included for
the first time as a component of the curriculum in secondary and teacher education, but in
practice, little has been done as yet to integrate them in educational materials. Formulation of a
second phase of reform is in progress.
Poverty Reduction Strategy
The Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS) was developed over nearly 4 years using technical
papers prepared by experts in relevant fields, several discussions at workshops, and participatory
rural appraisals but with limited public consultation. The document presented in 2002 was
exhaustive in its coverage of aspects of national life but was gender blind in its overall
perspective. Two short sections were included in the
(i) Poverty Profile (Poverty and Gender), and

(ii) in the final section on Pro-poor Governance (Combating Gender
Discrimination).
While women’s critical contribution to economic growth and the need for mainstreaming
gender in development programs were recognized, misperceptions and lacunae in the analysis of
gender dimensions of poverty and discrimination prevented a holistic gender perspective, and
limited proposed strategies to “combat” discrimination, to early childhood care, counseling
victims of violence against women, enterprise development initiatives, and collaboration with
community organizations. Women’s rights, gender relations, and women’s experience of poverty
do not appear to have received due attention. In mid 2002, a 2-week Mission supported by the
Netherlands Government attempted to make the Strategy document more gender sensitive. Time
constraints, however, limited these efforts.
Regaining Sri Lanka Policy
With the change of Government at the end of 2001, a new national policy was developed
titled “Regaining Sri Lanka – A Vision and Strategy for Accelerated Development.” The
Government’s immediate priority is to overcome the debt crisis and to stimulate the economy to
achieve a growth rate of 8–10%. The policy document is focused on achieving its economic
objectives by improving productivity and removing barriers to this task by accelerating the pace
of privatization and deregulation. The document refers to improving education, health, housing,
employment, and incomes of the total population. However, the distribution of the benefits of
growth and social and gender equity are overshadowed by the imperatives of macro economic
policies that are seen to accelerate growth that is envisaged to “trickle down” to all segments of
the population. The Poverty Reduction Strategy is relegated to Part II of the Report without
reference in the main report to “connecting the poor to economic growth” and eliminating
poverty. The Relief, Rehabilitation, and Reconciliation (RRR) process that began in 1999 has
been incorporated in the document as a strategy to achieve sustained peace without which the
economic goals cannot be achieved. However, gender is a missing component of the Regaining
Sri Lanka document, even in the sections on Employment and Labour, Education, Manpower and
Science, and Improving Productivity. In the Part II document, the section “Poverty and Gender,”
was shifted to Annex 2 and the overview on “A Profile of the Poor” makes no reference to the
needs of women in poverty.
Action Plan
The Action Plan of Regaining Sri Lanka is stated to be the outcome of the work of 19
groups under the guidance of the Policy Development Committee and to include “action in the
Poverty Reduction Strategy where they pertain to achieving economic objectives.” In the six
Action Plans on
(i) Macro Policy Framework;

(ii) Employment, Labour and Human Resources Development;
(iii) Financial Services;
(iv) Infrastructure Development;
(v) Improving Productivity; and
(vi) Public Sector Reforms
reference has been made to women only in section VI – Public Sector Reforms
a) to women’s land rights (under property rights),
b) self-employment for women in fishing communities (under assisting ultra poor
communities), and
c) in the penultimate strategy in this sector – “Combating Gender Discrimination.”
Policies and Programs 33
The “Combating Gender Discrimination” strategy identifies 14 Priority Actions specified

in the PRS document with the additions suggested by the mission referred to earlier, but with the
exception of that on “Protection of Women’s Rights” in conformity with the CEDAW. It appears
therefore that women’s concerns have been isolated in a set of priority actions that appear to have
no overt link with other strategies identified in the Action Plan.
PRS poverty monitoring indicators have been identified for all components of the
program. Here too, gender is marginalized as only two output indicators—increased support for
access to micro-credit and “counseling centers for victims of violence against women”—and one
outcome indicator—gender biases reduced in micro enterprise development—have been
identified despite the multiple issues that impinge on the lives of women.
Gender Equity Committee
The implementation phase of the strategies identified on the Action Plan of Regaining Sri
Lanka (2002), however, gives visibility to gender. Gender equity has been assigned to one of the
12 committees appointed to oversee implementation of strategies. The Committee consists of
representatives of the State, NGOs, academics/researchers, and the private sector with the
Secretary, Ministry of Women’s Affairs as Chairperson. All steering committees are primarily
responsible for translating the strategies identified in the Action Plan into action.
The Gender Equity Committee at its first meeting handed over the themes “Early
Childhood Education” and “Agricultural Extension” to the relevant Steering Committees and
selected the following strategies in the document for action:
(i) Laws that require amendment of discriminatory provisions,

(ii) Access of women to decision-making positions,
(iii) Diversifying vocational training for women,
(iv) Working conditions of migrant domestic workers,
(v) Services for victims of violence,
(vi) Female headed households,
(vii) Health and other issues of elderly women, and
(viii) Using mass media for gender sensitization.
Proposals were submitted on these issues to the Policy Development Committee, which
will monitor progress.
The Committee also recorded its view that it should not be compartmentalized and work
in isolation as gender is a crosscutting issue and women’s concerns need to be integrated in the
work of other Steering Committees. This is a critical issue as it is important that women’s
concerns should not be marginalized as in the planning process. There is enormous potential for
mainstreaming gender and promoting gender equity and the empowerment of women. The six
Action Plans formulated are extensive, encompassing the multifaceted priorities of women. The
Action Plans ranges from macro economic reforms to improving production in the agriculture,
industry, and services sectors and monitoring small and medium enterprises, infrastructure
development that will improve the quality of life of women and increase the access of women in
remote regions to services and resources, and social protection of ultra poor and vulnerable
women. The Gender Equity Committee has also to ensure that the objective of equity is not lost in
the macro economic scenario and that women in disadvantaged families are not excluded from
the development process through inability to share in the costs of programs.
Millennium Development Goals
The Action Plan document also expresses the State’s commitment to working toward the
MDGs but it appears that Sri Lanka is unlikely to halve poverty by 2010. The MDGs promote the
empowerment of women. In education Sri Lanka has progressed well with a retention rate at the
end of primary education of 98% for girls and 97% for boys. Gender equality has been achieved
in primary, secondary, and university education. Infant and child mortality rates are 17/1,000 and
the maternal mortality rate is 23/100,000 and their reduction will depend on the availability of
services to the poor. Contraceptive prevalence has increased to 71% and is likely to increase
further to meet demand. Malaria and HIV/AIDS programs are planned to reduce incidence. Two
more indicators—increasing the percentage of women in wage employment and in politics—are
dependent on the successful implementation of programs to increase women’s employment and to
enforce the 25% quota of nominations to contest elections.
Gender Peace Committees
The second area in implementation has been in programs to assist the population in
districts affected by 2 decades of armed conflict and to promote peace among communities. The
Regaining Sri Lanka document gave priority to this task also, as the conflict has affected both the
economy and people in different parts of the country. Under the theme of Conflict-Related
Poverty, the PRS identified the needs of the population affected by conflict. The RRR process
(Relief, Rehabilitation and Reconciliation) has continued since 1999 to identify needs and
programs. Strategies ranging from negotiation of a political settlement to consolidating the peace
process initiated with the cease-fire at the end of 2001 through humanitarian assistance, de-
mining, resettlement and relocation of displaced persons, providing access to basic services and
livelihoods, and fostering social harmony. A needs assessment is in progress.
A matter of concern in this whole process was the exclusion of women from participation
at policy formulation levels both in negotiations and postconflict activities. As an outcome of
lobbying by women’s groups in the South, a Sub-committee on Gender Issues, popularly known
as the Gender Peace Committee of five women from the South and five from the LTTE was
appointed in February 2003 with the agreement of the Government and the LTTE. The
Committee’s main function is to incorporate a gender perspective in all aspects of peace making,
peace building, rehabilitation, and reconstruction; to identify gender concerns; and to cooperate
with other mechanisms of the peace process. A facilitator from Norway assists the Committee.
The Committee has met twice in Killinochchi in the North, in March and April 2003.
The issues to be addressed and the modalities of operation were discussed at the first meeting. At
the second meeting it was decided that the two heads of delegation from the South and the North
would present the Committee’s Terms of Reference at the peace talks in April. Issues identified
for action were violence against women and harassment at checkpoints, equal representation of
women in politics, gender biases in school textbooks, crisis centers for women, and well-women
clinics, and representation of women in the Committee on Humanitarian Assistance. The
activities of the Committee have been stalled by the subsequent interruption of the peace
negotiations.
National Employment Policy
In 2002 the Ministry of Employment and Labour initiated the new National Employment
Policy which is not yet in operation. While much of the report is couched in the “gender neutral”
language found in official documents, specific attention has been given to women’s concerns.
One of the four major “social obligations” identified is women’s employment and related gender
biased attitudes and stereotypes, and awareness creation, childcare services, and training in skills
for self-employment. Migrant workers are considered an important group. Strategies are proposed
to “uplift the skills and image of migrant human capital” and in particular to enhance the skills of
migrant women workers and to protect them from abuse. Poor women are to be assisted with a
package of training and marketing services to participate in productive employment. Women’s
economic roles are recognized although cloaked by a veneer of social development.
National Machinery for Women’s Affairs
Efforts to give teeth to the Charter and to strengthen its operations by converting the
National Committee on Women (NWC) into an autonomous National Commission on Women
under the Head of State have continued to be stalled. The Bill was never brought before
Parliament, as policymakers were preoccupied with other priorities such as the armed conflict.
The National Plan of Action for Women, formulated in the post-Beijing years and revised in
1998, was never operational largely because the collaboration of the Ministry of Women’s
Affairs, Department of National Planning, and the relevant line Ministries continues to be non-
existent despite the identification of senior officials in Ministries as “Gender Focal Points.” In
late 2003 Secretaries and senior officials of Ministries were made aware of the plans and
requested to incorporate relevant components in their programs. Ministries have been requested
also to allocate 10% of their annual budgets to women’s concerns.
Gender mainstreaming remains a distant goal while the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and
its Women’s Bureau continue their programs in areas such as gender sensitization, lobbying for
revision of discriminatory laws, legal counseling and aid, and support to income generation
programs. Most provinces have Ministries responsible for women’s affairs (among other
functions) but there is no formal coordination between the Ministry of the Central Government
and these Ministries. However, the fact that the Secretary, Women’s Affairs is the Chairperson of
the Gender Equity Committee appointed in 2003 to implement the National Action Plan
“Regaining Sri Lanka” is a positive step toward gender mainstreaming and better coordination.
A national delegation of state and NGO representatives participated in the Beijing+5

Conference at the United Nations, New York in 2000.
With the change of government at the end of 2001, ripples of impending changes in the
structure of the national machinery are being felt. Acting according to its manifesto, the new
Government has proposed institutions that are likely to replace the current National Committee
on Women appointed under the Charter. A Women’s Bill has been developed into a Women’s
Rights Act providing for the establishment of
(i) an Executive Commission on Women of seven members with a full-time

Chairperson and Vice Chairperson appointed by the Constitutional Council with
the concurrence of the Minister in charge of Women’s Affairs for a term of 4
years. The Commission is to be a statutory incorporated body, which will advise
the Government, prepare plans, and report to Parliament. A Gender Impact
Committee appointed by the Commission will review all programs; and
(ii) a Women’s Advisory Council of 19 members appointed by the Constitutional
Council for 4 years to advise Parliament, the Minister in charge of Women’s
Affairs, and Provincial Councils on legislation.
It is not clear how these two bodies will operate and how they relate to the Ministry of
Women’s Affairs and these issues have yet to be finalized. The Act also sets up a strong
complaints and inquiry procedure on violations of rights under a Chief Counsel. It further
provides for affirmative action for 25% representation of women in Parliament within 2 years of
the Act coming into force. The Act is presently with the Legal Draftsman and is expected to be
available for discussion.
Another recent development at the national level is the establishment of a Gender Unit at
the Ministry of Policy Development and Implementation and the appointment of the Gender
Advisory Committee consisting of eight members.
CEDAW
Sri Lanka’s combined Third and Fourth Reports on the CEDAW were presented and
discussed at the meeting of the UN Monitoring Committee in New York in January 2002. Both
the State report and the NGO Shadow Report reviewed in detail the situation of women in Sri
Lanka under the provisions of each Article of the CEDAW, pointing out progress as well as
lacunae and related problems pertaining to the fulfillment of the legal, political, social, and
economic rights of women.
The Monitoring Committee in its Concluding Comments identified the following areas in
which the State was urged to take concrete action:
(i) discriminatory laws of the Muslim community, absence of domestic violence

legislation, and delay in amending discriminatory provisions in the Land
Development Ordinance;
(ii) nonapplication of the Constitutional guarantee of fundamental rights to the
nonstate sector (which the new Constitution is expected to address);
(iii) ratification of the Optional Protocol (ratified subsequently);
(iv) legalization of abortion;
(v) delay in introducing the Bill to establish the National Commission on Women
and in implementing the National Plan of Action for Women;
(vi) low level of participation of women in political office, in engineering and
technology related education and in the labor force, and the gender role
stereotyping underlying educational and employment systems;
(vii) the working conditions of migrant women workers;
(viii) the situation of female heads of households; and
(ix) the need for development programs including allocation of land to women in
families displaced by conflict.
Nongovernment Organizations
These organizations include women’s organizations, NGOs that are involved in women’s
programs among a range of programs, and community-based organizations focusing exclusively
on women’s concerns, or on all community-related issues including gender issues. There is no
recent inventory of such organizations but it is estimated that over 3,000 are active in different
parts of the country. Some have their special concerns—research, information, media,
mobilization, support for victims of violence, promotion of economic activities, health,
environment and peace and rehabilitation in conflict areas, while others meet the needs of women
in communities. The Sri Lanka Women's NGO Forum and the Sri Lanka Women’s Conference
are examples of umbrella organizations.
While there is no “women’s movement” with high visibility, women express solidarity by
collaborating on specific issues. Recent examples include:
participation of a delegation at the NGO meeting at the Beijing+5 UN

Conference in New York, 2000;
preparation of the Shadow Report to the UN CEDAW Monitoring Committee led
by the Centre for Women's Research;
participation of a delegation from women’s organizations in the Sri Lanka
session on CEDAW and a discussion with the Ministry of Women’s Affairs
regarding the Concluding Comments of the Monitoring Committee;
preparation and dissemination of the Women’s Manifesto by the Women’s
Political Forum and 11 other women’s organizations on the eve of the 2001
General Elections;
organization of a rally and activities for the International Women’s Day each
year, spearheaded by the Sri Lanka Women’s NGO Forum and the Women and
Media Collective; and
lobbying activities on issues such as violence against women, political
participation, issues of migrant workers, and the peace process.
Donor Agencies
Donor agencies have supported women’s programs since the mid-1970s during the
International Decade for Women (1975–1985). The trend in recent years has been to focus on
specific areas of activity determined by emerging issues. The following list is not exhaustive but
indicative of their interests.
UN agencies have their own mandates. ILO supports programs on skills training
including in the North and East, entrepreneurship training for women, trade union attitudes,
sexual harassment in the workplace and combating child labor. The United Nations Population
Fund (UNFPA) supports programs on gender and reproductive health, and seeks to promote the
involvement of men in reproductive health underscoring male responsibility and responsible
sexual behavior. UNFPA has developed a manual for health care providers on screening victims
of gender-based violence, and also supports screening and preventive services in well-women
clinics at community level for elderly women. The World Food Programme (WFP) provides
fortified blended foods to improve the nutritional status of mothers and children and organizes
“food-for-work” programs such as the provision of a food basket for families of those involved in
rehabilitation of minor irrigation works in which the majority of participants are women. WFP is
also involved in capacity building by training women in health, nutrition, income generation and
leadership programs and provision of water and sanitation facilities in selected communities. The
activities of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) have been mainly to support
programs to combat gender-based violence—support for training women officers attached to
Women and Children's Police Desks on women and children’s rights, establishing a safety net for
girls of migrant women workers who are vulnerable to incest and rape, providing equipment and
funds for training to two women NGOs who provide services to victims of domestic violence,
training medical professionals and support for printing and distribution of educational materials
and for media programs of the Ministry on gender-based violence. The World Bank has
commissioned a gender strategy in 1999 but no follow-up action has been taken.
ADB programs consider gender as a crosscutting issue and has underscored the need to
pay adequate consideration to the constraints and needs of women in designing and implementing
loan projects. Gender inequality in the labor market has been considered a priority issue in view
of the relatively higher unemployment rates of women and their lower earnings. Hence, ADB
funded gender-sensitive skills development project that promotes technical and vocational
training programs for women. Microcredit and small enterprise programs are supported to
increase the incomes of the poor and the project requires that 70% of the participants should be
women. The six Rural Regional Development Programmes that have been funded have also
promoted small-scale self-employment. In the environment-related projects that have been
supported such as forestry, and coastal and water resource development women have been
involved as social mobilizers and actors. Infrastructure projects, particularly road networks
outside the metropolitan city, have increased the access of women in marginalized communities
to services.
In addition to these programs, in 2002 ADB signed a Poverty Reduction Agreement with
the Government. Its objective is to reduce poverty through economic growth and human resource
development. There is awareness that the benefits of growth are not evenly distributed throughout
the country. The Agreement encompasses five strategies:
(i) create opportunities for pro-poor growth through infrastructure development;

(ii) enhance social development through improving access to secondary education
and the quality of education and increasing nutrition awareness;
(iii) promote community based natural resource management;
(iv) promote good governance with a public service more responsive to the needs of
the poor; and
(v) reduce conflict-related issues.
Gender issues have not been articulated or addressed and it is assumed that the ADB
policy of gender mainstreaming will be applied in all these programs.
Among the bilateral organizations, the Canadian International Development Agency

(CIDA) has the most extensive programs. Under the umbrella of its Shakti Gender Equity
Programme initiated in 1996, CIDA has supported several NGOs and women’s organizations
engaged in programs in three areas:
(i) violence against women;

(ii) women in the labor market and in information and communication technology;
and
(iii) participation of women in decision-making.
In addition, CIDA has promoted programmes on gender sensitive planning and

administration by key government training agencies and NGOs, assisted programs on gender
issues for members of the Judiciary, supported the advocacy program for voting rights of migrant
workers, and the preparation and dissemination of a Women’s Manifesto by 12 women’s
organizations on the eve of the 2001 general elections.
Over 2 decades, the Norwegian Agency for International Cooperation (NORAD), the
main supporter of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, the Women’s Bureau and women’s
organizations, has confined its interest chiefly to rehabilitation programs in conflict-affected
areas, promotion of peace, reconciliation, ethnic harmony, human rights and democracy, and to
economic development programs. The Netherlands Government focused on introducing a gender
perspective to the Poverty Reduction Strategy and ensuring the involvement of women in the
peace process and rehabilitation through the Gender Peace Committee. The Asia Foundation has
supported programs on human rights and the promotion of legal literacy and strengthening
women’s capacity for advocacy on rights issues. The Humanist Institute for Cooperation with
Developing Countries (HIVOS), Netherlands provides much needed institutional support to
around 20 NGOs of whom 9 are exclusively women’s organizations. Interlinked with this
support they also fund activities by these organizations in several areas such as law reform,
research, credit and savings, rural development, agriculture, environment, plantation women,
crisis centers, capacity building, mobilization of women, peace building, and networking. The
GTZ (German Technical Foundation) works actively in providing technical assistance to and
promoting women’s economic activities and vocational training. SWISS Contact also supports
nontraditional vocational training. Other donors too are involved on a lesser scale of operations.
Donor support has made it possible for nongovernmental, community-based, and

women’s organizations to engage in a wide range of activities that has helped to strengthen
women’s rights and women’s perceptions of their rights, and to improve their life chances and
quality of life.
Chapter 3 CRITICAL GENDER ISSUES
Gender and Poverty
The relative invisibility of gender in the Poverty Reduction Strategy and the many
dimensions of poverty identified in it underscore the need to incorporate gender in poverty
analysis. It was seen in Chapter 1 that women income earners in macro data received lower
incomes than men. The work of Sen, for instance, has shown that there are dimensions of poverty
other than income, such as human capabilities and social exclusion in access to services and
powerlessness, and that economic growth per se without asset redistribution and provision of
basic services cannot reduce poverty (Sen 1981). It is necessary, therefore, to look at these
aspects of poverty from a gender perspective, particularly in the context of persistent poverty in
Sri Lanka in the 1990s, amidst moderate economic growth that has palpably not benefited
communities outside urban and developed areas. Although gender-disaggregated macro data
pertaining to household and national incomes are not available, qualitative data from micro
studies provide useful insights.
While women in the major communities have, in theory, equal inheritance rights with
men, women have unequal access to and control of productive assets such as land and housing in
practice. The allocation of state land in settlement areas and village expansion programs over 7
decades has reduced poverty by increasing the asset base of the poor. However, this pro-poor
program has had a gender-differentiated impact as women in settlements have been deprived of
their land rights through the inheritance schedules in the Land Development Ordinance of 1935.
As an outcome of continuous lobbying by women’s organizations, draft amendments to the
Ordinance to provide for gender equality in succession have been prepared but have yet to be
submitted to the legislature. Land rights are crucial to reducing rural women‘s vulnerability to
poverty or even destitution, and is an issue to be addressed urgently.
Gender differences in poverty is a consequence of gender inequality in the labor market.

Labor is a major asset of women in the context of their lack of access to other economic resources
and women’s labor inputs are crucial for the survival of families in poverty. While there has been
some degree of feminization of the labor force in recent years in specific occupations, female
unemployment rates have continued to be double those of men over 3 decades, underemployment
is endemic among women workers in agriculture and local industries, and gender inequalities are
wide in economic returns to their labor.
Studies have shown that besides the unemployed, those in absolute poverty are the
working poor among whom are the landless laborers, small-scale farmers, plantation labor, small
and cottage industry workers, casual labor, construction workers, petty traders and domestic
workers, whose earnings are inadequate to meet basic needs. Women are the majority in virtually
all these groups. In the rural sector they are unpaid family workers, agriculture wage labor or
engaged in unviable micro-enterprises, or are low paid piece rate workers. In the amorphous
urban informal sector they move from one low-skill, low-income, unstable occupation to another.
Self-employment with access only to credit without other inputs has failed to generate incomes
and has perpetuated their poverty. The closure of industries and reduction in public sector
employment even at the lowest levels has led to loss of livelihoods and income in the absence of
alternative opportunities.
Wage employment has been found to be a critical strategy for women to move out of
poverty (Gunatilake 1999) and to be empowered if they control the resources they generate.
(Jayaweera and Sanmugam 2001). While poverty alleviation programs have not significantly
reduced poverty, income transfers by women employed in export processing zones or in migrant
domestic labor have enabled families to come out of absolute poverty. However, experience in Sri
Lanka and elsewhere has shown that low wage, labor-intensive employment cannot assist upward
socio-economic mobility. Currently, there are several lacunae in employment-oriented policies.
Women in low-income families are not a homogenous group as some have had 12 years of
education. If women are to move out of poverty, there is need to diversify skills development
programs, eliminate gender role stereotypes, and provide them access to technology. In self-
employment, they need access to a package of services including vocational and management
skills, technology, and market information. The bias in macro economic policy against small
producers, the majority of whom are women, need to be removed. If women are to participate in
the small and medium enterprises proposed in national plans, they need assistance to graduate
from micro enterprises to access these services. Economic growth policies should have
concomitant programs to address the constraints that women face in entry to remunerative
employment.
It is agreed widely that Sri Lanka’s policies over 6 decades to develop human capabilities
through free education and health services have made a major contribution to reducing poverty
and to promoting gender equality in access to education. Nevertheless, poverty is the main cause
of dropping out of school and more commitment is necessary to achieving the goal of Education
for All. At the senior secondary and tertiary levels women, particularly in low-income families,
are disadvantaged in access to science, technology, and IT. The majority of unemployed
graduates are women arts graduates from low-income families to whom higher education has
ceased to facilitate exit from poverty. Education and the provision of extensive health services,
including reproductive health, have enabled women to cope with poverty, but the incidence of
morbidity has not declined appreciably. In both education and health, services provided for the
poor are of low quality, thereby limiting the life chances of women in low-income families. Safe
drinking water and good sanitation have yet to be universally provided.
Poor infrastructure, particularly in the rural sector, has been identified in the Poverty
Reduction Strategy as a factor that has stymied efforts to reduce poverty. Lack of easy access to
main roads, regular transport, electricity, communications, and markets have resulted in the
marginalization of remote rural communities who are thus excluded from the benefits of
economic development. Programs have been introduced in recent years to fill this gap, but
progress has to be accelerated in the context of widening urban-rural disparities as a consequence
of uneven development. Women are relatively more disadvantaged in spatial mobility. In all parts
of the country the poor are powerless and voiceless without adequate representation in local
Critical Gender Issues 43
government institutions. Social mobilization has a history of over 2 decades but

compartmentalization of ideologies has prevented the economic-cum-social mobilization of
women in poverty and their participation in determining their needs.
The concept of “feminization of poverty” has been based on the perception that the
proportion of women in poverty has increased faster than that of men. There is inadequate
gender-disaggregated data in Sri Lanka to examine this assumption but there is no doubt that
women are highly visible in new vulnerable groups. High life expectancy juxtaposed with lack of
assets and other resources has driven the increasing numbers of elderly women in low-income
families to destitution. Social protection programs need to be addressed to meet their need for
shelter, financial support, and geriatric care. A group of newly poor are the retired or retrenched
workers whose resources are not adequate to cope with escalating costs of living. The claim that
there is no difference in the poverty levels of female-headed and male-headed households needs
to be questioned in the light of micro data that record the real experiences of women heads of
households in poverty. Disaggregation of data by variables such as age, marital status, dependent
children, and employment will help to identify the single mothers with young children and no
resources who are the poorest of the poor and who need support and access to livelihoods.
Conflict-related poverty will be discussed in a subsequent section.
Women in low-income families have been losers in the process of structural adjustment
and globalization but macro policies can also maximize the potential of globalization to promote
gender equity and to reduce poverty. Women in poverty who are engaged in economic activities
for family survival and mobility cannot be left to market forces but need to be equipped with the
skills and resources to access the markets and with social protection through insurance. The
“male breadwinner” image that underpins many plans has to be adjusted to the reality of women,
especially women in low-income families as economic “actors” who need to combine productive
and reproductive roles. The interface of class and gender underscores the need for a supportive
macro economic environment and equitable gender relations in the family, workplace, economy,
and society.
Women in Peace and Reconstruction
The cease-fire has given a respite from widespread armed conflict to start a process of
rehabilitation and long-term reconciliation. The RRR dialogue initiated in 1999 for relief,
rehabilitation, and reconciliation initially developed the contours of this process. The Regaining
Sri Lanka document stressed the need for peace for the successful implementation of economic
development programs. The Poverty Reduction Strategy has recorded the impacts of the 2-decade
conflict on the population in the North and East in terms of conflict-related poverty. A needs
assessment in the eight districts of the North and East funded by the UN, ADB, and World Bank
and a Rapid Needs Assessment of Educational Needs by the National Institute of Education
supported by UNICEF in the eight districts and in the affected districts in bordering provinces
were carried out and documented in detail in early 2003. There is, therefore, adequate information
to start a process that will hopefully lead to normalcy in the North and East and programs for
national recovery and harmony.
As survivors of the conflict, care givers of their families and often heads of household,
women will clearly play a substantial role in these programs. The Poverty Reduction Strategy is
as said earlier purportedly gender neutral. The final draft of the Needs Assessment document has
been injected with a gender perspective, to take “full account of gender dimensions essential for
equitable outcomes.” It recognizes the key role of women as economic actors and in social
development, the need to mainstream gender issues “to the extent possible,” to pay special
attention to single-headed households and the human rights of women affected by gender-based
violence. The Gender Peace Committee also appointed in early 2003 is mandated to ensure an
over arching gender perspective in the process of rehabilitation and peace building.
There is, therefore, a long agenda of identified activities. Firstly relief or immediate
humanitarian assistance to the population, particularly those displaced in and out of welfare
centers (around 800,000) and to the returnees (nearly 300,000), their protection and security,
needs for shelter, and resettlement or relocation, access to basic services, food and livelihoods,
psycho-social support, and concomitantly a continuing process of de-mining. Special vulnerable
groups are homeless and abused children, women who have been thrust into responsibility as
heads of households without resources, women exposed to sexual abuse, those disabled by land
mines, and the elderly.
In an area devastated by war, with destroyed or damaged infrastructure and disruption of

traditional economic activities, the process of rehabilitation is conceived as a medium-term plan.
The needs assessment surveys spell out the areas in which intervention is necessary.
Rehabilitation of infrastructure such as roads, railways, posts, telecommunications, power,
irrigation, water, and sanitation are given priority. The restoration of the health services,
reconstruction of nonfunctioning hospitals and medical centers and provision of adequate food to
stem the rising incidence of undernutrition are perceived also to be priorities. Similarly, access to
education is to be ensured. The National Institute of Education report estimated the dropout rate
to be 15.8% in the compulsory school age group (5–14 years), and to be as high as 31.8% in the
Mannar district. It also pointed out the need to rehabilitate school buildings including
laboratories, libraries, water supply, sanitation, and electricity, and the demand for teachers and
principals, for “catch up” programs with special curricula in nonformal education centers. The
Needs Assessment Committee emphasizes the importance of peace building through the
education process, through curricula, textbooks, and conflict resolution programs and through
peace camps and exchange of students between the North and South.
Access to income-earning opportunities is crucial in these areas, including for women

heads of households. Traditionally agriculture, irrigation, fisheries, and forestry have been the
main sources of livelihood in a population with a large rural sector. An immediate need identified
is to provide small loans to the poorest and more vulnerable complemented by skills and services.
In the context of the crucial role of women as actors, access to credit should not be confined to
the poorest. Moreover, it is important to ensure that women are not confined again to what are
perceived to be appropriate “feminine” occupations as the experience of women in the war
environment is likely to have blurred gender segregation in the labor market. Women should also
Critical Gender Issues 45
be well-represented in the student population in the proposed new Institute of Technology, the
Hardy Institute of Technology, and in the new Technical College in order to ensure their access to
employment in technical fields.
Working toward reconciliation will be a continuing process through inclusive policies,

conflict resolution strategies and mechanisms, peace education programs, and the experience of
ethnic cooperation and co-existence.
It has been left to the Gender Peace Committee to look at the specific needs of women
such as protection from gender-based violence that has escalated with militarization and to look
beyond the immediate environment to eliminating gender role stereotypes in school textbooks and
to ensuring equal representation of women in politics. It is inevitably women’s participation in
decision-making at the highest level and promotion of gender equality through the education
process that will enable women to be empowered to achieve gender equality.
This postconflict program has also to include the following components of the population
outside the North and the East, as they too have suffered from the horror and turbulence of armed
conflict:
(i) women and men in villages in the North Central Province and in the Moneragala
district whose lives were disrupted, access to services and livelihoods lost, and
who have to recover from the trauma of continuous violence over the years;
(ii) women in the refugee camps in the Puttalam district who had to cope with loss of
homes and livelihoods in the North, and whose families have existed for over a
decade in these camps; and
(iii) widows of those soldiers who have become women heads of households in low-
income families, and the wives and care givers of disabled soldiers who can no
longer meet family needs.
Chapter 4 GENDER ISSUES RELEVANT TO
ADB OPERATIONS
Gender Issues in Sri Lanka’s Development Context
The overview of the situation of women in Sri Lanka brought out several issues that are
relevant to the formulation, implementation, and monitoring of development programs. It was
seen that many of these development programs had a differential impact on women and men, and
that the interface of socioeconomic status and gender increased the vulnerability of women in
low-income families to adverse trends in development.
Women have benefited from education and health policies and programs, but even in
these sectors there are constraints to the development of their full potential and to their
empowerment. Disparities in the provision of educational facilities affect their access to senior
secondary science education and tertiary education. Women are adversely affected by the poor
quality of infrastructure and the learning-teaching environment but have an additional obstacle
created by the impact of gender role stereotypes on their aspirations and options. Gender
imbalances in enrollment in technical programs at the secondary and tertiary level equip them
with a narrow range of skills that disadvantage them in the labor market. The issue that has
emerged recently is the wide gender digital divide and urban-rural polarization in the burgeoning
field of information and communication technology.
In the health sector, the poor quality of infrastructure and services in the periphery and
the escalating costs of drugs affect women in low-income families suffering from communicable
and degenerative diseases. There is a clear relationship between poverty and maternal
undernutrition. While maternal and child health services are extensive, women are specially
disadvantaged in different phases of their life cycle with respect to supportive programs—as
adolescent girls, working women exposed to occupational health hazards, and elderly poor
women in need of geriatric care. The relatively high incidence of morbidity among the poor is
caused, inter alia, by lack of access to safe drinking water and sanitation and exposure to
pollution as a consequence of lack of proper disposal of garbage and industrial effluents and other
forms of environmental degradation.
A major area of gender discrimination and disadvantage was seen to be the labor market.
Female unemployment rates have been at least double those of men over 3 decades. Female labor
force participation rates have declined or fluctuated as a consequence of their greater
vulnerability to global economic recessions and policies such as the impending demise of the
Multi-Fibre Agreement, and national macro economic policies. Women make a crucial
contribution to the economy but the majority are trapped in low skill, low-income jobs and poor
working conditions in response to labor market demand for low cost female labor in industry and
services, the casualization of labor, and the expansion of a peripheral and often invisible labor
market of piece rate workers. Women are mainly unpaid family workers in agriculture. Self-
employment and micro credit without access to skills, technology, and markets have perpetuated
their poverty. There is socioeconomic differentiation reflected in the access of the minority of
women in families with resources to high level employment including those expanding in the
globalized economy, or to profitable entrepreneurship, and the absence of opportunities for
secondary or even university educated women in low-income families to upgrade their skills and
achieve upward occupational mobility. The most disadvantaged are the women who live in
isolated communities without access to roads, electricity, services, and markets.
Among the new, vulnerable groups that have emerged are women in conflict-affected
areas, female heads of households in poverty groups, and elderly poor women. Women’s rights
underpin gender equality and empowerment—rights to assets, resources, knowledge, skills,
services, and to human dignity and personhood. Violation of these rights have resulted in gender
discrimination and in its virulent form, in gender-based violence in the family, the workplace, and
the public domain. The social construction of gender distorts perceptions of gender roles and
relations and undermines the equal participation of women in the development process.
ADB’s Country Strategy and Program
ADB’s approach in recent years has supported policy reform, human resource
development, infrastructure development, natural resource management, and employment
promotion. The focus of assistance has been moving out of urban areas such as Colombo and the
Western Province to other provinces and to the rural sector. Twelve projects are nearing
completion, 12 more are in the pipeline for the next country program 2003–2005, and technical
assistance has been made available for the formulation of 15 projects.
The areas in which ADB has financed programs cover many sectors. Major areas have
been
(i) agriculture and rural development,
(ii) private sector development,
(iii) human resource development,
(iv) secondary education and vocational education,
(v) development of social infrastructure – water supply and sanitation and urban
development and housing for low income families,
(vi) development of economic infrastructure – energy and transport, and
(vii) natural resource management.
During 2003–2005 and beyond, ADB seeks to strengthen its programmes in these areas,
and to further support programmes –
(i) commercialization of agriculture;
(ii) small and medium enterprise development in urban and rural areas;
(iii) postsecondary education modernization and skills development;
(iv) secondary town and rural water supply and sanitation;
(v) rural electrification, road development, and Colombo Port development;
(vi) natural resource management and sustainable eco management; and
(vii) governance.
Gender Issues Relevant to ADB Operations 49
A special project has been developed to assist in the relief and rehabilitation programs in
the North and East.
ADB has reviewed the experience of the past and has acknowledge that its assistance to
promoting economic growth has not had the desired results as the benefits of economic growth
have not “trickled down” to the poor as expected. ADB has, therefore, not only supported the
development of the Government’s poverty reduction strategy over 4 years, but has also evolved
its own three-pronged poverty reduction strategy for Sri Lanka—social development, pro-poor
economic growth and good governance, drawing on the components identified for action in the
government strategy document. While it supports the thrust of the new government policy
document “Regaining Sri Lanka” to accelerate economic growth through enhanced productivity
and incomes and increased private sector participation, it has introduced a pro-poor orientation in
many of the projects in the pipeline and in the stage of conceptualization.
Gender Issues in ADB’s Programs
Gender, like poverty and conflict, is a crosscutting issue. Since 1998, under the Gender
and Development Policy mandates, ADB has been increasingly incorporating gender issues in its
loan projects. Gender mainstreaming has been ADB’s approach to integrating gender issues in its
development assistance. Based on the overview of the situation of women in Sri Lanka and the
parameters of many ongoing and planned ADB projects, it is possible to identify the following
gender-based interventions in different sectors.
Agriculture and Rural Development
ADB has had many years of involvement in the agriculture sector and has supported
regional rural development programs in the North Central and Southern Provinces.
Dissatisfaction with the contribution of Integrated Rural Development Programmes (IRDP) in
facilitating economic growth and rural transformation and reducing poverty, the Government has
shifted its stance to converting such programs to Rural Economic Advancement Programmes
(REAP) to promote entrepreneurship and private enterprise. ADB, too, has an ongoing program
of support to the REAP in the Southern Province. It is also planning a project on
Commercialization of Agriculture. In the expected transformation of the depressed rural and
agriculture sector, women who are the most marginalized as unpaid family workers in small
family farms or as low-paid wage laborers should have the opportunity to be actively involved as
agents of change. Women seek employment outside their villages as semi-skilled or unskilled
labor as a result of low productivity and low incomes in rural areas.
Both projects have potential to mainstream women in high productivity, market-oriented

economic activities and thereby assist women to increase their incomes and enhance their
contribution to economic development. Food processing, for instance, is at present virtually a
low-skill, low-income activity. But with the availability of fruits, vegetables, and cereals in the
rural sector, the technology available in the Industry Training Institute and the Industrial
Development Board, and the knowledge base of educated women at the secondary level, a
window of opportunity is available for women to be actively involved in remunerative and more
productive food processing activities. Women’s economic roles in the agriculture sector will be
expanded with access to agro technology, which is currently a male preserve so that they can
move out of their traditional basic cultivation activities to participate equally with men in rural
transformation.
In the plantation sector, the issue of the exodus of young women to low level
employment in urban centers in order to escape the drudgery of plantation labor suggests the need
to promote innovative labor-intensive technologies in women’s economic activities in tea and
rubber plantations.
Industry and Finance
ADB’s Rural Finance Sector Development and Small and Medium Industries projects are
intended to provide an enabling environment for micro and agro businesses and small and
medium enterprises. The experiences documented in many studies were seen to underscore the
fact that there has been a bias against small producers and that self-employment and micro-credit
to which women gravitate in view of their relative lack of access to formal sector employment,
have not helped women to exit poverty, but have perpetuated poverty for most women. If women
are to benefit from micro enterprise development, they need the critical inputs including
nontraditional vocational skills, technology, management skills, and market information and
access, in an integrated package. Rural industries that have been declining in recent decades have
yet to be revitalized to increase the access of women to nonfarm employment. Policy rhetoric has
yet to be congruent with action at the national level.
The Small and Medium Enterprise project will assist women entrepreneurs with
resources to operate successfully. However, competent and motivated women require assistance
to “take off” from micro enterprises to small and medium enterprises. Project personnel need to
be motivated to support and monitor the progress of potential women entrepreneurs with growth
potential.
Enterprise development is a strategy to reduce unemployment in the context of women’s

greater vulnerability to unemployment. It has to be noted, however, that one of the MDGs is to
increase the proportion of women in wage employment, which has been a major agent of
empowerment for poor women in Sri Lanka as elsewhere. Wage employment in industry,
overseas domestic labor, and plantations has generated income and national revenue but has
reinforced also gender inequalities in the workplace. A gap in national policy has been the failure
to upgrade the skills of women in low-income families to enable them to access wage
employment with higher levels of income.
Education and Training
Education has been a major factor in reducing poverty as well as gender inequalities in
Sri Lanka. The gender issues that need to be addressed in this sector are constraints to the access
of girls in poverty groups to quality education, high dropout rates in senior secondary education,
limited opportunities for tertiary education, gender imbalances in enrollment in science and
technical related courses, and failure to use education purposefully as an agent to promote the
empowerment of women.
National policies such as free education and the provision of a range of incentives have
provided women with access to general education. Further incentives such as stipends and
measures to improve the quality of secondary education as in the Secondary Education
Modernisation Project will increase access to educational opportunity for girls in low-income
families who drop out of secondary grades. A specific gender issue is the concentration of girls in
arts streams and their under-representation in science streams in senior secondary grades.
The vulnerability of women to unemployment and their marginalization in the labor

market without adequate opportunities for upward occupational mobility, are addressed on the
supply side in the ongoing Skills Development project, by support for competency-based and
“nontraditional” skills development with a labor market orientation. In Sri Lanka, a current and
seemingly intractable issue is the demand for low-cost, low-skill female labor and the gendered
bias against the employment of women in technical employment. The target approach of 70%
participation by women in small entrepreneurship programs could perhaps be adopted also for the
apprenticeship program in the wage sector.
An emerging issue is the gender as well as urban-rural digital divide in a context of

national policy initiatives to promote information and communication technologies, both as an
avenue of employment and as a response to demands created by globalization. The three ADB
projects in the pipeline—Secondary Education Computerization, Postsecondary Educational
Modernization, and Postsecondary Education Development, address specifically the task of
reducing both gaps through the provision of inputs to secondary schools and to the Open
University and other tertiary education institutions engaged in distance education. Gender
imbalances are wide in technology-related courses in the Open University and in other tertiary
education institutes. Initiatives such as web-based learning and networking, however, need to
encompass all curriculum areas and to have a wide rural outreach, to achieve the objectives of the
project. A potential also exists for the development of telecenters for rural women’s groups to
enhance their knowledge and access to markets as in India.
Underpinning the gender issues that affect the incorporation of women in the expanding
knowledge-based economy are gender role stereotypes embedded in the context of education and
the “hidden” curriculum. Very little has been done in Sri Lanka to counter this process of
gendered socialization in schools, teacher education institutions, and centers of higher education
and vocational education. Initiatives at this level could facilitate gender mainstreaming at all
levels.
Infrastructure Development
ADB has supported infrastructure development substantially. There are projects that are
in operation and others in the pipeline pertaining to (i) urban development and low-income
housing and Greater Colombo wastewater management, (ii) water supply and sanitation in
secondary towns and in the rural sector, (iii) transport—Southern highway and primary roads and
networks, and the development of the Colombo Port, and (iv) power sector development and
rural electrification.
Access to safe water is a basic right and a strategy to reduce the incidence of waterborne
diseases and the household labor of women. Urban low-income housing and an environment free
from pollution are priorities for women in low-income neighborhoods. Better transport facilities
and their access to services assist in bringing women in poor and remote communities within the
ambit of the development process. Rural electrification not only improves the quality of life but
also opens income-earning opportunities in modernized enterprises.
The critical issue in all infrastructure development projects is the participation of women
in planning, implementation, and monitoring so that women can obtain optimal benefits. Male
dominance is pervasive in Sri Lanka in areas that are seen to require “technical expertise.” On the
other hand, over 2 decades of social mobilization programs have empowered women to articulate
their needs and to identify strategies for their own advancement and that of their families. Rapid
needs assessment surveys and planning sessions in which women participate equally with men
facilitate the location of services such as water supply schemes, access roads, housing and
resettlement of displaced families to maximize services and opportunities. In the same way,
participatory monitoring will not only provide relevant feedback but will also ensure that women
are mainstreamed in such programs.
Natural Resources
Ever since Rio and Agenda 21, at least the role of women in the conservation and
utilization of natural resources has been in Sri Lanka recognized in program implementation,
though not yet at the national policy level. As seen in ADB's four projects that are close to
completion and three projects in the pipeline, a strong community orientation offers space for the
participation of women. Whether it is in forest resource management and related land use
planning, equipping fishing families with skills for the preservation and management of coastal
resources, or water resource development to enhance income-earning opportunities, women have
clearly a role to play in the management of natural resources and an opportunity to expand their
economic roles. Two issues of concern are the need to ensure that community participation is
contingent on the equal participation of women and men. The second issue is that community
mobilization, like social mobilization, is a process that has to be translated into action through
specific modalities and support services spelled out in planning and implementing the program.
Otherwise, women could continue to remain on the periphery of development programs.
Conflict Affected Areas
ADB has participated in the RRR process and is assisting in the rehabilitation program in
the North and East by facilitating access to housing, basic services, education, health, and
livelihoods. While the rehabilitation of infrastructure is in progress, specific programs need to be
addressed for women affected by armed conflict. Women need sustainable livelihoods to ensure
the maintenance and upward mobility of their families. Two areas of intervention are possible:
(i) Agriculture is a major source of livelihoods in the North, East, and contiguous
areas affected by conflict and women have been actively involved in cultivation;
and
(ii) Restoration of physical infrastructure is a large component of the rehabilitation
programs that will provide housing and basic services, and improve the well-
being of women and their families.
Since the conflict has been the outcome of many years of ethnic disharmony, mistrust and
tensions, efforts to provide national harmony in the context of Sri Lanka’s multicultural society is
necessarily a concomitant of the rehabilitation program. Such a program is most effective when
integrated in the curriculum of all schools in the country.
Women-headed households are seen as a vulnerable group needing support in the

exercise of their responsibilities. Most conflict-related projects focus on female-headed
households justifiably. But in the context of the mayhem of war and destruction, women in
households headed by men also need to restart their lives, and relief and rehabilitation programs
need to address their needs and not only the needs of their households.
Gender Mainstreaming
Gender mainstreaming in all programs and projects is facilitated by
(i) the acceptance of a conceptual framework in which women’s rights are

recognized as human rights for the formulation of all programs. This implies that
safeguards are built in to ensure women’s rights to assets such as land, resources
such as knowledge and skills, services such as food, water and reproductive
health, and to protection from gender-based violence and discrimination and
oppressive social practices in both the public and private sectors;
(ii) the utilization of techniques such as gender analysis, processing of gender-

disaggregated data, and development of gender-sensitive indicators, and gender
audit or gender impact assessments. A gender audit of the national and district
level planning and monitoring level (Jayaweera 2001) found that while there was
little overt resistance to incorporating gender issues in plans and programs, there
was a lack of awareness of these issues, lack of skills in the techniques specified
earlier, and an absence of mechanisms within institutions to ensure effective
gender mainstreaming. There is clearly a need for technical assistance for the
development of relevant skills, and for advocacy in which women’s
organizations are currently engaged.
(iii) The institutional framework for gender mainstreaming exists but lacks
coordination, networking, and cooperation. ADB has access to the key
institutions—the Ministry of Policy Planning and Development and its
Department of National Planning, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Women’s
Affairs, relevant line Ministries, and their gender focal points, provincial
ministries, research institutions, women’s organizations at national and
community levels, and other donors. Monitoring mechanisms in projects and
external evaluation studies will provide feedback that will identify gaps and
positive achievements.
Chapter 5 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ADB
OPERATIONS
The overarching goal of the ADB gender strategy is to mainstream gender issues in
programs and projects in order to promote gender equality and the empowerment of women. The
conceptual framework for the strategies is determined by women’s rights as spelled out in the UN
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. The Millennium
Development Goals and their indicators impart immediacy for implementing strategies by 2015.
In the Sri Lankan context, recent political changes have surfaced new policy priorities
focusing on accelerated economic growth to increase productivity, employment, and incomes. A
confluence of factors—a sluggish economy, persistent poverty and a cease-fire that makes it
possible to provide relief to war ravaged districts—have produced three main national policy
documents:
Regaining Sri Lanka,

Poverty Reduction Strategy – developed over 4 years, and
Relief, Rehabilitation and Reconciliation (RRR) – emerging from ongoing needs
assessment in conflict-related areas.
ADB projects are inevitably influenced by the priorities identified in these programs and
its own commitments to assist in the promotion of economic growth in a globalized competitive
market, and to poverty reduction in a situation in which macro economic policies have had little
impact on improving the quality of life of the substantial proportion of the population living in
poverty (see Appendix).
Gender is a crosscutting issue that influences roles and relations of men and women and
outcomes of development programs that affect the lives of women and their families as well as
trends in national development. The social construction of gender that underpins response to
external stimuli and policy perspectives, and the interface of gender, socioeconomic
differentiation and the physical, economic and social environment determine some of the
parameters of project development. ADB’s gender checklists are responsive to contours of social
norms and practices, and gender sensitivity is necessary to translate these criteria into concrete
goals, objectives, and strategies.
Major areas of gender-related strategies or interventions that will facilitate mainstreaming

in projects can be identified in consonance with the issues that have surfaced from the overview
of the situation of women, national policies and programs, non-governmental and donor
activities, and ADB projects.
1. Expanding remunerative employment opportunities for women:
(i) in the informal sector, by facilitating their participation in micro, small, and
medium enterprises in the agriculture, industry, and services sector. As there is
evidence that micro credit per se has failed to enable women to exit poverty, it is
important to ensure the provision of an integrated package of critical inputs such
as technology, vocational and management skills, and market information, and
in the formal sector by increasing opportunities for wage employment;
(ii) advocacy for reform of laws and regulatory systems and enforcement of
legislation to safeguard women’s rights, e.g., amending the Land Development
Ordinance to guarantee equal land rights, ratifying and enforcing ILO
Conventions;
(iii) assisting the Government in negotiating to enter into bilateral agreements with
countries that employ Sri Lankan migrant workers in order to safeguard their
rights and welfare in their workplaces; and
(iv) sensitizing the private sector to the need for gender equality in socioeconomic
development.
2. Expanding educational opportunities for women:
(i) ensuring a more equitable distribution of senior secondary science education

facilities and alternative opportunities for women in tertiary education that will
enable them to compete on equal terms in the labor market;
(ii) reducing gender imbalances in technical and vocational training and the gender
digital divide in information and communications technology in order to equip
women with skills to meet the needs of the labor market and to enhance their
contribution to economic growth; and
(iii) promoting the elimination of gender role stereotypes in curriculum materials and
introducing inputs in the secondary and tertiary education curricula to promote
gender equality and the empowerment of women.
3. Equal participation in planning, implementation, and monitoring of infrastructure

development programs that facilitate access to safe water, sanitation, roads, transport
services, energy and, thereby, to employment, markets, services, and inclusive
development.
4. Participation on terms of gender equality in planning, implementation and monitoring,

and in community-based programs in natural resource management.
5. Supporting programs for women affected by armed conflict including war widows and
other female heads of households in the North and East and in the Puttalam,
Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa, and Moneragala districts.
Recommendations for ADB Operations 57
(i) allocation of land to women in displaced families and provision to women

engaged in cultivation, of credit, skills training, technology, and market access
through comprehensive self-employment programs;
(ii) promotion of enrollment of women including school leavers in training programs
in construction trades to meet the demand created by rehabilitation of
infrastructure. The fluidity that prevails in the environment offers also space for
promoting the participation of women in technical training programs in
institutions; and
(iii) promotion of reconciliation and national harmony through the school curriculum
by supporting the National Institute of Education or another agency to develop
materials that will ensure mutual understanding and appreciation of the cultural
diversity of Sri Lanka’s multi-ethnic society.
6. Supporting programs to meet the needs of vulnerable groups of women on
(i) geriatric care, economic support, and shelter for elderly women without
resources;
(ii) access to livelihoods and child support for female heads of households in low
income families; and
(iii) retraining facilities for retrenched workers in low-income families.
7. Technical assistance to upgrade skills in gender analysis, development of gender-

sensitive indicators and gender audit in order to facilitate the mainstreaming of gender in
all policies, plans, and programs. In particular, to equip Ministry officials with skills in
gender analysis and impact assistance with special reference to
i) incorporating relevant components of the National Plan of Action for Women in

their Ministry programs and monitoring their implementation; and
ii) engendering annual Ministry budgets.
8. In governance,
(i) assistance to the Ministry of Women's Affairs to enhance the capacity of women
candidates or women elected under the proposed provision of a 25% quota for
elections, by promoting self-confidence, assertiveness, and gender sensitivity in
order to participate effectively in political affairs;
(ii) advocacy to strengthen enforcement of laws to ensure women’s rights;
(iii) support for programs such as legal literacy, legal aid and counseling, which are
palpably inadequate to meet current needs;
(iv) provision of technical assistance to police desks and hospitals to develop formats
for recording information pertaining to incidents of domestic violence, rape,
incest, and sexual harassment/abuse; and
(v) strengthening the capacity of the Department of Social Services to establish and
maintain crisis centers in district, community, or other centers for victims of
domestic violence and other forms of gender-based violence.
Common components of all strategies will be the gender sensitization at all

levels, empowerment of women through their participation and mobilization as actors and
agents of change, and the use of multi media in a transformative role to promote gender
equality and human dignity.
The matrix presented seeks to incorporate gender responsive interventions in

ADB projects in operation and in the pipeline and to indicate gaps where they exist for
future projects.
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ADB PIPELINE OF PROJECTS (2004–2006)
Area Strategy Ongoing ADB Project ADB Project in Pipeline

1.0 1.1 Increase the access of rural women to agro 1.0 Southern Province 1.0 Commercialization of
Agriculture technology, scientific methods and markets in order to Regional Economic Agriculture
increase their productivity and incomes. Advancement Programme 1.1 Enhance
1.2 Support women’s participation in value added (REAP) Commercialization in
activities such as food processing. 1.1 Aquatic Resource Agriculture
1.3 Facilitate women’s equal participation in farmer Development
companies. 1.2 Plantation Development
1.4 Support measures to ensure women’s land rights. 1.3 Second Perennial Crops
1.5 Support programs to sensitize administrators to Development
recognize women’s role as agricultural producers.
2.0 2.1 Promote equal participation of women in micro- 2.1-2.3 Rural Finance Sector 2.1-2.3 Small and Medium
Industry, Services, enterprise development. Development Enterprise Development II
and Finance 2.2 Ensure the provision of an integrated package of
credit, technology, vocational and management skills Human Resource Investment
and market information that will facilitate success in 2.1-2.6 Southern Province
micro enterprises and “take-off” to small and medium Regional Advancement Basic Social Infrastructure
enterprises. Program Development
2.3 Assist women with the required assets to access
incentives offered for Small and Medium Enterprises. Small and Medium Financial Sector
2.4 Support initiatives to revitalize or develop rural Enterprise Sector Development and Product
industries. Development (SMESDP) Innovation
2.5 Assist in expanding opportunities for women in
remunerative wage employment. Improving Service Delivery
2.6 Assist in upgrading skills of women in low level SMESDP Credit Assistance
employment such as factory labor and domestic labor
to promote their upward occupational mobility.
2.7 Advocacy for policy reform
bilateral agreements with countries receiving
migrant labor from Sri Lanka,
ratification and enforcement of ILO Conventions
2.8 Sensitize the private sector to the need for gender Private Sector Development Private Sector Development
equality in the labor market Program Program III
3.0 3.1 Promote equal access to and participation in 3.0 Secondary Education 3.2-3.3 Secondary Education
Education and science and technology-related senior secondary and Modernization Modernization II
Training tertiary education. Distance Education Distance Education Public-
3.2 Assist in reducing gender imbalances in technical Modernization Private Partnership
and vocational education and the gender digital divide Science and Technology Secondary School Teachers’
in information and communication technology. Personnel Development Training
3.3 Commissioning tracer studies to assess the 3.2-3.3 Skills Development
employability of skills developed through training Project
programs. 3.4 Secondary Education
3.4 Promote the elimination of gender role stereotypes Modernization
in curriculum materials and introducing materials to
promote human rights, gender equality, and the
empowerment of women.
4.0 4.1 Ensure the equal participation of women in a 4.1 and 4.2 Third Water 4.1 and 4.2 Rural Water
Infrastructure consultative process in Supply and Sanitation Supply and Sanitation
Development • needs assessments; and Project
• planning and monitoring at decision making Secondary Towns and Water
levels of infrastructure development projects Southern Transport Supply and Community –
pertaining to water supply and sanitation, roads Development based Sanitation
and transport, energy, urban and regional
development. Urban Development and Primary Road Development
4.2 Strengthen the capacities of women in Low Income Housing
community-based organization to mobilize to ensure Project Road Network Development
equal participation in and benefits from development
projects Southern Provincial Road Rural Electrification
4.3 Ensure priority in land allocation to vulnerable Improvement
groups of women, where resettlement occurs.
5.0 5.1 Assist in identifying the negative impact of 5.1 and 5.2 Coastal 5.1 and 5.2
Natural Resource development programs on women’s access to natural Resource Management Sustainable Eco-management
Management resources Sector Development
Ensure priority in land allocation to vulnerable groups Forest Resource River Basin Management
of women, where resettlement occurs. Management
5.2 Ensure the equal participation of women Greater Colombo Waste
in community-based programs pertaining to the Water Resource Water Management
conservation and management of natural Management
resources such as forests, coasts, water Local Governance in Rural
in relevant income-generating activities Upper Watershed Water Supply and Sanitation
Management
Jaffna Water Supply and
Protected Area Management Waste Water Management II
and Wild Life Conservation
North East Province Coastal

Community Development
6.0 6.1 Support programs for women affected by armed 6.1 North East Community 6.1 North East Community
Women in conflict, both Restoration and Restoration and Development
Conflict- women heads of households Development II
Affected Areas women in male-headed households in the North
and their Families and East and in Puttalam, Anuradhapura, Implementing National
Polonnaruwa, and Moneragala districts, in Resettlement Policy
accessing services, livelihood activities, and
counseling
6.2 Allocate land to women in displaced families.
6.3 Provide credit, skills training, technology, and
market access to those engaged in cultivation.
6.4 Promote enrollment of women in training
programs in construction trades to meet the demand
created by rehabilitation programs.
6.5 Support school/media/community-based programs
envisaged to promote peace and national harmony.
7.0 7.0 Identify the needs and supporting programs where Incorporate in projects Incorporate in projects where
Vulnerable relevant in projects for where relevant relevant
Groups of Women 7.1 The elderly – geriatric care, economic support,
shelter
7.2 Female heads of households in low-income 7.2-7.3 Rural Finance Sector
households Development
7.3 Retrenched workers in low-income families
without access to alternative employment, e.g.,
retraining
8.0 8.1 Provide technical assistance to upgrade skills in 8.1-8.3 All projects 8.1-8.3 All projects
Gender public, private, and NGO sectors in gender analysis,
Mainstreaming development of gender sensitive indicators, and
gender impact assessment.
8.2 Support gender sensitization of policymakers,
administrators, and the private sector to facilitate
gender mainstreaming in all plans and programs.
8.3 Provide technical assistance to equip Ministry
officials with skills to
(i) incorporate relevant components of the National
Plan of Action for Women in Ministry programs, and
(ii) engender annual Ministry budgets.
8.4 Assist the Ministry of Women’s Affairs to create a
mechanism to coordinate and monitor women’s
programs organized by central and provincial
governments in the context of national plans and
programs.
9.0 9.1 Adopt policy reforms to increase the participation 9.1-9.3 Where relevant in 9.1-9.3 Where relevant in
Governance of women in legislative assemblies and decision- projects projects
making positions in the public and private sectors.
9.2 Assist the Ministry of Women’s Affairs to
enhance the capacity of women candidates or women
elected under the proposed 25% quota to participate
effectively in political office.
9.3 Implement policies and actions to strengthen
enforcement of laws to safeguard women’s rights as
spelled out in Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination Against Women and to
prevent gender-based violence.
9.4 Support for programs such as legal literacy, legal
aid, and counseling and crisis centers by the state and
NGOs.
9.5 Provide technical assistance to police desks and
hospitals to record information on incidents of
domestic violence, rape, incest, and sexual
harassment/abuse.
9.6 Strengthen the capacity of the Department of
Social Services to establish and maintain crisis centers
for victims of gender-based violence.
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Country Gender Assessment

ASIAN DEVELOPMENT BANK

South Asia Regional Department and

Publication Stock No. 040704

Published by the Asian Development Bank

Rupa Simithriarachchy and Sugandhika Nawana provided secretarial services. Bong

It is hoped the publication will also be useful to government, nongovernment

ADB – Asian Development Bank

In this report, “$” refers to US dollars.

Chapter 1 WOMEN IN SRI LANKA 1

Chapter 2 POLICIES AND PROGRAMS 31

Chapter 3 CRITICAL GENDER ISSUES 41

Chapter 4 GENDER ISSUES RELEVANT TO ADB OPERATIONS 47

Chapter 5 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ADB OPERATIONS 55

A major area of inequality, disadvantage, and gender discrimination is employment. The

While women have been involved in implementing environment-related projects, the

Sri Lankan women have a relatively better “status”

A complex amalgam of factors has contributed to Goal 5 Improve maternal health

Women’s Rights in Sri Lanka

Despite the experience of 7 decades of a democratic system of governance, universal

Health and Nutritional Status

Nevertheless, the quality of health services needs to be improved substantially,

State and nongovernmental agencies organize family planning programs. Contraceptive

Effective programs have yet to be implemented in the areas of adolescent health,

Education and Training

Even though economic constraints continue to be a barrier to promoting equal

Provision of General Education

Economic constraints and inequalities in resource allocation have, however, perpetuated

the socioeconomic background of students, school facilities, and educational performance of

Table 1: Percentage of Girls of Total Enrollment in Schools

Participation, Retention and Performance in Education

Fig. 1. Percentage of Girls and Boys of Total Enrollment in Schools

Source: School Census 2002, Ministry of Education.

Table 2: University Admission by Sex

Academic 1995–1996 2001–2002

Sri Lanka has currently 13 universities, 6 postgraduate institutes and 7 non-graduate

Table 3: University Enrollment

Academic 1995–1996 2001–2002

Few alternative opportunities exist in higher education. Professional courses are

Technical and Vocational Education

This pattern of gender differentiation in enrollment is seen also in the island-wide

Table 4: Enrollment in Technical Colleges

Skills 1998 2003

Education and Socialization

Education has failed to

Information and Communication Technology

Women in Sri Lanka have Table 6: Labor Force Participation

Male unemployment rates by

(as compared with one third of the 32.6

labor force), nearly 70% of the 30

education) are currently women. A

A higher percentage of women workers continue to be in professional and clerical

in 2002. A few women have

The rapid pace of Table 8: Unemployment Rates by Educational Level

In the industry sector, Table 9: Percentage Distribution of Employed

In the services sector, retrenchment Fig. 3. Percentage Distribution of

A recent study of retrenched/retired

Table 10: Departure for Foreign Employment

Women with family resources have emerged as successful entrepreneurs in the

Table 12: Income Receivers – Mean Income

Equally significant nonincome dimensions of poverty need to be examined to understand

These dimensions will be discussed from a gender perspective in Chapter 3 in order to

Gender-disaggregated comprehensive data are not available to assess the incidence of